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PART OF 
NEW YORK CITY 



NEW YORK 



ILLUSTRATED: 



A PICTORIAL DELINEATION OF STREET SCENES, BUILDINGS, 

RIVER VIEWS, AND OTHER FEATURES OF THE 

GREAT METROPOLIS. 



rJ 




•LIBEETY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD," 

BY BARTHOLDl. 

(To be erected on Bedloe's Island, in the harbor.) 




NEW YORK : 
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, 

1, 3, & 5 BOND STREET. 

1S81. 



70 



\l^, .\t\A.,'\t^i . 



COPYRIGHT BY 

D. APPLETON & COMPANY. 

1881. 






CONTENTS 



THE SITUATION 

STREET SCENES - - 

BUILDINGS 

CHURCHES 

RIVER AND WHARF SCENES 

ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES 

PARKS AND PLEASURE-PLACES 

BROOKLYN 



5 

9 

42 

67 

81 

101 

123 

136 



LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. 



" Liberty enlightening the World " Title-page. 

The Situation. 

New York from Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island 5 

New York from the Hudson 6 

Lower Part of the City of New York, from the Bay. . 7 

View of New York from Brooklyn Heights 8 

Street Scenes. 
Wall Street, with Treasury Building at the right, and 

Trinity Church at the head of the Street 9 

Drexel Building, corner of Broad and Wall Streets, 

and Stock Exchange ; 10 

Nassau Street, north from Wall Street 11 

Pine Street 12 

Upper part of Nassau Street 13 

Fulton Street, looking toward Brooklyn Ferry 15 

The Approach to the East Kivcr Bridge 17 

Broadway, south from the Post-Office 19 

Union Square 21 

Madison Square and Twenty-third Street 22 

Broadway, West Side cf Madison Square 23 

" A May-Day in Fifth Avenue " 25 

Twenty-third Street, from corner of Fourth Avenue. 26 

Fifth Avenue Scenes , 27 

Fifth Avenue, at corner of Twenty -first Street 28 

Thirty-fourth Street, corner of Fifth Avenue 29 

Filth Avenue. — The Vanderbilt Mansions 30 

Coaching Day. — Scene in Fifth Avenue 31 

Fifth Avenue and Fifty-si.xth Street 32 



PAGE 

Park Avenue 33 

Elevated Eailway in Third Avenue 34 

Corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, 

showing Elevated Eailway and Station 35 

The West Side Elevated Railroad at 110th Street 37 

West Street, near Canal Street 38 

South Street, below Burling Slip 39 

Market-Wagons Stand 40 

Tenement-Houses 41 

Buildings. 

City Hall and New Court-House 42 

Custom-House, Wall Street 43 

Post-Office and U. S. Court Building 44 

Interior, Post-Office 45 

City Prison, or " The Tombs " 46 

Court-House, Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street 47 

U. S. Barge Office, Battery 48 

Grand Central Depot 49 

Columbia College. (New Building. ) 50 

Astor Library 51 

Lenox Library 51 

Normal College 52 

St. Joseph's Home, Lafayette Place 53 

Trinity-Parish School 54 

New York Hospital, West Fifteenth Street, between 

Fifth and Sixth Avenues 55 

Roosevelt Hospital, Ninth Avenue and Fifty-ninth 

Street 56 

Mount Sinai Hospital, SLxty-sixth Street 57 



LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. 



PAGE 

The Lenox Hospital ;; ' " ' ^^ 

Masonic Tomple, on Twenty -third Street and Sixth 

Avenue '''' 

Booth's Theatre, corner of Twenty-third Street and 

Sixth Avenue 58 

The Grand Opera-House, corner of Twenty-third 

Street and Eighth Avenue 59 

Seventh Regiment Armory 59 

Union League Club fiO 

" The Victoria " 61 

" The Florence " 62 

Park Avenue Hotel S3 

Western Union Telegraph Company's Building C4 

The "Tribune" and "Times" Buildings, Priuting- 

House Square 65 

New York Life-insurance Building 60 

A. T. Stewart & Co.'s, Broadway, from Ninth to 

Tenth Street 66 

ClirRCHES. 

Trinity Church and Martyrs' Monument 67 

St. Paul's Chapel — View from Graveyard 68 

Grace Church, corner of Broadway and Tenth 

Street 69 

St. Augustine Chapel, East Houston Street 70 

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue 71 

Eefonxied Dutch Church, Fifth Avenue and Forty- 
fifth Street 72 

Church, corner of Lexington Avenue and Sixty- 
third Street 73 

Synagogue, Lexington Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street 74 
Church of the Holy Trinity, Madison Avenue , cor- 
ner of Forty -second Street 75 

St. Bartholomew's, Madison Avenue 76 

Temple Emanuel, corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty- 
third Street 77 

St. Thomas's Church, comer of Fifth Avenue and 

Fifty-third Street 78 

Presbyterian Church, Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fifth 

Street 79 

St. George's Church, corner of Sixteenth Street and 

Rutherford Place 80 

Church of the Transfiguration, Twenty-ninth Street, 
near Fifth Avenue 80 

River and Wharf Scenes. 

Scene on the North River 81 

View of the Bay from the Battery 83 

Landing-Steps, west of the Battery 84 

North River Flotilla 85 

Ferry-Boat at Night 85 

An Ocean-Steamer in Dock 86 

An Ocean-Steamer outward bound 87 

North River Oyster- Boats 88 

The Canal-Boats, East River 89 

Wharf-Scene 90 

Fish-Market, East River 91 

Fishing-Boats in Dock 91 

East River Bridge, between New York and Brook- 
lyn 93 

Dry-Dock 94 

Navy- Yard, Brooklyn 95 

A Misty Morning 96 

Harlem Bridge 97 



PAGE 

Harlem River on a Holiday 98 

High Bridge 99 

Architectural Features. 
Roof and Windows, corner Fifth Avenue and Fifty- 
seventh Street 101 

Facades, Fifty-seventh Street, between Fifth and 

Sixth Avenues 102 

Facades, Madison Avenue, near Fortieth Street 103 

Fagades, Fifty-seventh Street, between Fifth and 

Madison Avenues 104 

Fagade, Columbia College 105 

Facade, Fifty -seventh Street, west of Fifth Avenue. 106 
Porch and Window, Fifty-seventh Street, west of 

Fifth Avenue 107 

Porches in Wall Street, lielow Broad I08 

Porch of Morse Building, Nassau, corner of Beek- 

man Street 109 

Entrance to the Academy of Design 110 

Porch of Trinity School', Twenty-fifth Street Ill 

Porch of the Dry-Dock Savings-Bank 112 

Porch of Church of Heavenly Rest, Fifth Avenue, 

near Forty-fifth Street 113 

Old-style Doorway 114 

A Fifth Avenue Porch 114 

Porch on Fifth Avenue 115 

Porch in East Thirty-si.xth Street 115 

Porch, Thirty-ninth Street, east of Park Avenue.. . 116 
Tower — Fitth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street. ... 117 
Oriel Wmdow — Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh 

Street 117 

Bay-Window — Fifty -seventh Street, east of Fifth 

Avenue 113 

Window— Thirty-fourth Street US 

Gable— East Thirty-seventh Street 113 

Mansard Roof— Fifth Avenue and Fifty-sixth Street 119 

Tower— Trinity School 120 

Turret — Fifth Avenue, near Twenty -second Street. 120 
Belvedere — Thirty -si.xth Street, near Park Avenue. 121 

Tower— Fiftieth Street, near Fifth Avenue 121 

Tower — New Court-House, Sixth Avenue 1l'2 

Parks and Pleasure-Places. 

Central Park 123 

The Mall, Central Park 125 

Terrace, Central Park 127 

Central Park Drives 128 

The Obeli.sk, Central Park 129 

Riverside Park 131 

Jerome Park 132 

Coney Island as it was 133 

Scenes at Coney Island 134, 135 

Brooklyn'. 

Ferry-House, Brooklyn 136 

City Hall, with Kings County Court-House and 

Municipal Building in the rear 137 

Academy of Music and Academy of Design 138 

Long Island Historical Society Building 139 

Brooklyn Scenes — Clinton Avenue ; Clinton Street ; 

On the Heights 140 

Prospect Park 141 

Greenwood Cemetery 142 

Bird's-eye View of Atlantic Docks 144 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



THE SITUATION 




New York from Fort Wadsworth, Sta-ten Island. 



"TTTHAT Bosvvell said of London is scarcely 
VV less true of New York. Its aspects are 
manifold, and, while each man finds in it the 
Mecca of his pursuits, it comprehends not one 
class alone, but the whole of human life in all its 
variety. The city of New York now includes 
Manhattan Island; Blackwell's, Ward's, and Ran- 
dall's Islands in the East River ; Governor's, Bed- 
loe's, and Ellis's Islands in the bay, occupied by 
the United States Government; and a portion 
of the mainland north of Manhattan Island, sep- 
arated from it by Harlem River and Spuyten 
Duyvil Creek. It is bounded north by the city 
of Yonkers, east by the Bronx and the East 
River, south by the bay, and west by the Hud- 
son River. Its extreme length nortli from the 



Battery is sixteen miles ; its greatest width from 
the mouth of the Bronx vvest to the Hudson 
is four and a half miles. Its area is forty-one 
and a half square miles, or twenty-six thousand 
acres. 

Manhattan Island, upon wliich the city is 
mainly built, is about thirteen and a half miles 
in length on one side and eight on the other, is 
one mile and three fifths broad on an average, 
and is bounded at its northern extremity by the 
Harlem River, which, with Spuyten Duyvil Creek, 
connects the Hudson River and East River. It 
is surrounded by water navigable for the most 
part by the largest vessels, and its harbor is one 
of the safest, largest, and most beautiful in the 
world. 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



Less than three centuries have eUipsed since 
Henry Hudson, the Dutch navigator, passed 
through the Narrows and disemharked from bis 
little schooner on the present site of the Battery. 

Traders followed Hudson, and in 1614 the 
future metropolis of the New World consisted of 
a small fort on the site of Bowling Green, and 
four houses. It was then called " Nieu Amster- 
dam," and the domain acquired was named the 
New Netherlands. 

When it finally came into possession of the 
English in 1674, and the name was changed to 
New York, the settlement expanded and grew 
with great rapidity. The spirit of the staid and 



conservative Dutch burgher gave way to that of 
the pushing and energetic Anglo-Saxon, a race 
distinguished in history for its success in coloni- 
zation, and the union of progress and stability 
which it stamps on its institutions, both political 
and social. 

In 1699 the population had increased to about 
6,000. At the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
tury the number had reached 60,000, and the city 
extended about two miles north from the Bat- 
tery; in 1830 it was 202,000; in 1850, 515,000; 
in 1860, 805,000; in 1870, 942,000; and in 1880, 
according to census reports recently published, 
a trifle over 1,250,000. Until the latter part of 




New York from the Hudson. 



1873 it ended at the Harlem River, but in the 
November elections of that year the towns of 
West Farms, Morrisania, and Kings Bridge, hith- 
erto a part of Westchester County, were annexed 
to tl)e advancing metropolis. 

Perhaps no harbor in the world is more pict- 
uresque, with the exception of the Bay of Na- 
ples, than that of New York. From some ele- 
vated point on Staten Island the observer may 
gaze on a vista of natural beauty, heightened by 
suggestions of human interest and activity, which 
alike charms the eye and stirs the imagination. 
The outer bar is at Sandy Hook, eighteen miles 



from the Battery, and is crossed by two ship- 
channels from twenty-one to thirty-two feet 
deep at ebb-tide, and from twenty-seven to 
thirty-nine feet at the flood, thus admitting 
ships of the greatest draught. The Narrows is 
the name of the strait by which the inner bay 
communicates with the outer or maritime bay, 
and is formed by the approach of tlie shores of 
Long Island and Staten Island within a mile of 
each other. This strait may be likened to a 
gateway from the ocean, while standing like huge 
sentinels to guard the watery pass are Forts 
Wadsworth (formerly called Richmond) and 



THE SITUATION. 



Tompkins on the verge of the Sta- 
ten Island shore, and Fort Hamil- 
ton on the Long Island shore. 

From the parapet of Fort Wads- 
worth the beauty of the panorama 
unfolds itself in a picture of sur- 
passing charm. In the far distance 
gleam the innumerable spires of the 
city, dwarfed into a multitude of 
glittering points, and the bright 
waters of the bay toss a multitude 
of vessels of all descriptions, from 
tiny tugs and sail-boats to huge 
three-masters and ocean-steamships 
arriving and departing. In one di- 
rection the eye takes in the green 
sweep of Long Island, built down 
to the very water's edge with trim- 
ly-kept villas; in another, a haze 
vaguely reveals the cities of Jersey 
•City and Hoboken, lying across the 
Hudson from New York. On a 
pleasant day the brilliancy of the 
American atmosphere makes this 
vision of shining waters, white sails, 
distant spires, and green bluffs, 
highly fascinating. 

As the inward-bound traveler 
sails fairly within the bay, the pict- 
ure becomes more and more strik- 
ing. He is now within the heart of 
a fleet of stately ships and steamers, 
plowing a surface that has been 
cut by all the keels of the civilized 
world. In tlie foreground there are 
patches of green that in the sum- 
mer sun sparkle like great emeralds 
in a silver setting — Bedloe's, Ellis's, 
and Governor's Islands, whereon 
are defensive fortifications, Bedloe's 
Island being the proposed site of 
the colossal statue of Liberty, the 
gift of the French people, now be- 
ing sculptured by Bartholdy. The 
traveler looks on a map every item 
of which is eloquent with busy life. 

In front looms the great me- 
tropolis, with its miles of roofs and 
broken outlines of spires, towers, 
and domes, now sharply cut to the 
perception, and telling of religion, 
thought, art, trade, and industry, 
developed under their busiest con- 
ditions. On either side, as far as 
the eye can reach, the water-line 
is fringed with a dense forest of 




8 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



masts, from which fly the vari-colored flags that 
represent the commerce of the globe, and sug- 
gest such a wonderful story of international 
relationship, the brotherhood of man. On the 
left we see the cities tributary to New York 
which nestle on the New Jersey shore ; on the 
right, Brooklyn, the "City of Churches," the 
large dormitory of New York's surplus popu- 
lation. Spanning the East River, as that strait 
is called which connects Long Island Sound with 
the bay of New York, in one bold leap from 
shore to shore, the colossal structure of the 
Brooklyn Bridge, nearly sixteen hundred feet 



long, and the largest structure of its kind in the 
world, greets the eye. The water is black with 
ferry-boats and small steamboats, and the intense 
vitality and movement of the scene can hardly 
be described in adequate words. 

The situation of New York for commercial 
purposes is not surpassed. Lying between the 
North — or, more properly speaking, Hudson — 
and the East Rivers, it has two very extended 
and convenient water-fronts, making a total 
length of dock-line not equaled by that of any 
city of its size in the world. The water-fronts 
of Brooklyn, Jersey City, and Hoboken belong 




of New York from Brooklyn Heights. 



too, in every essential sense, to New York, and 
represent its shipping interests. The Hudson 
River, which flows on the west side of the city, 
bears an enormous aggregate of freight and pas- 
senger-travel, and offers to the stranger one of 
the most picturesque journeys in the world, not 
excepting even the traditional attractions of the 
river Rhine. Within eyeshot indeed of the city, 
the lofty Palisades rise boldly picturesque, and 
wooded to their very tops, while glimpses of hand- 
some villas and towns can be caught in the distance. 



On the east side of the' city the Sound pours 
its waters through a narrow gateway, and serves 
a valuable commercial use in giving easy water- 
carriage between the metropolis and the New 
England coast. Until within a recent period the 
East River passage was made somewhat danger- 
ous by the submarine rocks and reefs of Hell 
Gate, as a portion of the strait is called; but 
these hidden obstacles to free navigation have 
now been so far destroyed as to make the pas- 
sage perfectly safe and easy. 



STREET SCENES. 



9 



In the East River lie three striking islands — 
BlackwelFs, Randall's, and Ward's — which give 
great variety to the scene, and are occupied by 
punitive and charitable institutions, while be- 
yond these the shores of Long Island and New 
York slope away to a greater distance from each 
other, showing a succession of charming country- 
seats and beautiful wooded reaches as far as the 



eye can extend, which seems merely an exten- 
sion of the city, gradually dissolving into green 
and cultivated fields and pleasure-seats. 

Such is the situation of the city of New York, 
the third great capital of the world, and destined 
ultimately, perhaps, to be its first — a city unrivaled 
in situation, and in all those facilities and advan- 
tages which make a great center of civilization. 



STREET SCENES 



THE stranger visiting New York is at once 
impressed by the intense activity and bus- 
tle alike visible and audible in all the conditions 
of its street-life. The crush of carriages, drays, 
trucks, and other vehicles, private and public, 
roaring and rattling over the stone-paved streets ; 
the crowds of swiftly-moving men walking as if 
not to lose a second of time, their faces preoc- 
cupied and eager ; the sidewalks encumbered, 
without regard to the convenience of pedestrians, 



with boxes and bales of goods — in a word, the 
whole aspect of New York in its business portions 
is a true key to the character of its population, 
as the most energetic and restless of people. 

The Battery, which looks out on the noble 
bay, is comparatively a serene and restful oasis 
in the fierce turmoil of city life, but one hardly 
crosses its boundaries without feeling the fever- 
ish heart-beat of the metropolis. Walking up 
Broadway only a few squares, we quickly find 




Wall Street, with Treasury Building at the right, and Trinity Church at the head of the Street. 



10 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




Drexel Building, corner of Broad and Wall Streets, and Stock Exchange. 



ourselves in that network of thoroughfares which 
lies around Wall Street, a financial center, only 
second to Lombard Street, London, in the variety 
and weight of its international interests. 

At the head of Wall Street, on Broadway, 
Trinity Church uplifts its graceful spire as if a 
perpetual reminder of more solemn things ; but 
the busy money-getters, who swarm like flies 
under the shadow of its venerable walls, find 
no time or taste to linger over such reflections. 
The congeries of streets running parallel with 
Wall Street for two or three squares, and crossing 
it, are lined with massive and splendid struct- 
ures, in which the principal banking and railway 
business of the continent is transacted. Wall 
Street proper is about half a mile long, extend- 
ing from Broadway to the East River, and in it 
are the Stock Exchange, the Sub-Treasury, and 
the Oustom-House. The street derives its name 
from the fact that in the old Dutch days the city 
wall ran along this limit, the land to the north 
being common pasturage. In the building which 
stood on the site of the present Sub-Treasury, 



the first Congress of the United States after the 
adoption of the Constitution assembled, and un- 
der its portico George Washington was inau- 
gurated first President. The fine structure which 
now lifts its front of marble on the site is two 
hundred and eighty feet long, eighty feet wide, 
and eighty feet high. The main entrance is in 
Wall Street, and is made by an imposing flight 
of eighteen broad marble steps. 

At the corner of Broad and Wall Streets we 
find the Drexel Building, occupied by Drexel, 
Morgan & Co., the bankers, and the Leather 
Manufacturers' National Bank. It is six sto- 
ries high, built of white marble in the Renais- 
sance style. Within the walls it is two hundred 
and two by seventy-five feet. Its erection cost 
seven hundred thousand dollars. The tall marble 
building seen on the right of the structure is 
the Stock Exchange, which is in Broad Street, 
near Wall, with two other entrances on Wall 
and New Streets. The offices of the brokers 
who live, move, and have their being in this 
atmosphere of speculation, and manipulate by 



STREET SCENES. 



11 



far the greater portion of the stocks, bonds, and 
money of the country, occupy nearly every 
building for several squares around this financial 
center. The throng is great and continuous, and 
on a great field day in the stock-market the ex- 
citement almost reaches delirium, presenting to 
the unsuspicious stranger almost the aspect of an 
out-door bedlam. 

Bank-messengers with actual bags of gold 
and packages of bonds easily convertible into 
gold ; office-boys with saucy manners and no 
less saucy faces; shrewd detectives with quiet, 
unobtrusive ways, altogether unsuspicious; tele- 
graph-boys, in neat uniforms, carrying yellow 
envelopes, that contain words penned only a few 
minutes before in London, Paris, or San Fran- 
cisco ; railway magnates more important in 
swaying the solid destinies of the world than 
many kings ; spruce clerks and laborious porters 



— all these and other elements are iucluded in 
the great tide of life. 

Amid all the turmoil the chimes of Old Trin- 
ity burst into the strong melody of a hymn, and 
ring out the promises of the Eternal Rock in 
tones that the uproar of traffic can not drown. 
The grand old church in this confusion of com- 
merce, embodying in its Gothic architecture 
centuries of suifering and victory, pathetically 
appeals to the veneration of the passer-by, but 
those absorbed in the worship of Mammon scarce- 
ly cast a glance at the historic sanctuary. 

Let us step for a moment from the life of the 
streets into the human din of the Stock Ex- 
change. The interior is occupied by a spacious 
and lofty hall, having a gallery across one end 
for visitors. When business is at its height, the 
scene is a strange one. The visitor looks down 
on a tangled mass of human beings, shrieking 








Nassau Street north from Wall Street. 



12 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



and waving tlieir arms aloft like madmen. No 
order or puri)Ose would seem to reign in this 
confusion, but underneath and behind all this 
apparent chaos run the most intelligent plans 
and purposes, and a system which is like a piece 
of clock-work. The stranger visiting New York 
tinds no more interesting spectacle than the in- 
terior of the Stock Exchange during a tiuie of 
very active speculation. 



Looking northward from the Treasury we 
have a view of Nassau Street — a wonderfully 
busy thoroughfare, crowded near its lower por- 
tion with several very stately bank-buildings, the 
Bank of Commerce, the Continental Bank, and 
the Fourth National among them, with several 
handsome structures occupied by a number of 
the great private banking-houses, the well-known 
Brown Brothers being among them. On the 




Pine Street. 



right, two squares distant, is the time-honored 
church until recently occupied as a post-office, 
with its moldy and time-stained walls, telling 
with grave fidelity of an ancient and varied his- 
tory. In early times it was known as the Middle 
Dutch Church, and during the Revolution was 
used as a riding-school for the British caval- 
ry, and a military prison wherein hundreds of 
American captives were huddled and died. Its 
uses as a post-office terminated in September of 



1875, and it is now divided into various retail 
stores. 

A walk down Wall Street will well repay the 
visitor, for he will see not a few of the hand- 
somest banking institutions in America, and a 
display of noble architecture such as is not i)re- 
sented in the same compass elsewhere on this 
continent. Chief among these is the handsome 
structure known as the Bank of New Yoi-k ; and 
the once famous Merchants' Exchange, now 



STREET SCENES. 



13 



the Custom-House, the latter being a 
model of solidity and graceful pro- 
portions. A little farther down 
Wall, we cross Pearl Street, the lo- 
cality of cotton-brokers, the Cotton 
Exchange, and wholesale houses in 
various merchandise. At the foot 
of "Wall Street is one of the ferries 
which connect New York with Brook- 
lyn. 

Proceeding one square northward, 
we find ourselves in Pine Street, a 
finely-built thoroughfare on which 
there are many noble and massive 
structures occupied by banks and other 
corporate companies, but rather som- 
ber from its narrowness and the lofty 
buildings which keep it in shadow. 
At the head of the street stands the 
Martyrs' Monument in Trinity church- 
yard. 

Nassau Street, also quite narrow, 
is for the most part handsomely 
built, and a street of much impor- 
tance, as, apart from a great variety 
of business transacted there, it is one 
of the principal radii of Wall Street. 
Its northern terminus is Printing- 
House Square, opposite City Hall 
Park. Portions of Nassau Street are 
peculiarly notable for its second-hand 
book - shops and stalls, and buyers 
from all portions of the country gath- 
er at these antiquarian resorts to pick 
up old editions not easily obtainable 
elsewhere. Our illustration gives a 
view of the upper part of the street. 
The massive structure to the right 
is the Morse Building, at the corner 
of Beekman Street, a great colony of 
many offices, looming up to a vast 
height. Beyond may be seen the 
tower of the Tribune Building, facing 
Printing-House Square. 

Few of the down-town streets 
offer more interest and variety to the 
eye of the stranger than Fulton Street, 
which extends from river to river, 
having at its termini two of the most 
important markets in the city, Wash- 
ington Market on the North River, 
and Fulton Market at the East River 
terminus. It is the principal approach 
to Fulton Ferry, which is the most 
largely patronized of the New York ferries, and I the evening from four to seven, presents a most 
which in the morning from seven to ten, and in | animated scene of diversified throngs moving to 




Upper part 



14 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



and fro from Brooklyn. At the busiest times of 
these hours the boats are so packed with human 
beings that there is scarcely standing-room for 
another passenger. 

The street itself is a scene of much animation 
and movement. It is lined with small retail 
shops for the most part, but shops of the better 
description, in the part nearer the ferry ; while 
adjacent Broadway it contains large wholesale 
warehouses. Probably nowhere in New York 
is a greater variety of articles offered for sale, 
from pins and needles to heavy iron-work, from 
guns and fishing-tackle to the costliest jewelry, 
from books and stationery to every article of 
wearing-apparel, from paintings and hric-d-lrac 
to old junk-iron. The irregular line of this 
thoroughfare presents a constant throng of pe- 
destrians, and, as it is the main route from 
Brooklyn, nowhere off Broadway can be seen a 
larger number of well-dressed men and women 
in down-town New York. 

Fulton Market for many years has been one 
of the celebrated places of New York to which 
most strangers are desirous of paying a visit. 
The buildings themselves are now very old, and 
have long been felt to be entirely inadequate to 
their purpose, but all attempts to have them re- 
moved and new buildings erected have thus far 
failed. Fulton Market has two specialties — fish, 
which are sold on the northern or Beekman 
Street side of the building; and oysters, which 
are served in all styles on the southern and 
eastern sides — Dorlon's place having among the 
oyster-shops a reputation which is known far 
and wide. 

Two squares above the ferry, Fulton Street is 
crossed by the New York Elevated Railway, and 
a station exists at the corner. The difficulties of 
utilizing narrow streets for the necessities of the 
elevated roads are very well exemplified in this 
case. It was found necessary to transform a por- 
tion of the old United States Hotel (in the early 
part of this century one of the most aristocratic 
and exclusive places of its kind in the city) into a 
railway-station, as the street space did not admit 
of such a use. The omnibus and street-car lines 
which run on Fulton Street, the throngs of 
trucks and drays, the mass of pedestrians, and 
the pictorial variety of the shops, combine to 
make the ennemhle a very amusing one. 

Northward of Fulton Street and extending 
from City Hall Park to the East River, the ex- 
plorer finds himself in the so-called " Swamp," 
which is the center of the hide and leather trade 
of New York. The name was given on account 
of the low situation, which caused it to be over- 



flowed at very high tides. The streets in this re- 
gion are short and narrow, and the air is strong- 
ly impregnated with, the pungent odor of salted 
hides and fresh sole-leather, mixed with the more 
aromatic smell of kid, morocco, and calf -skin. 
This business portion of New York still supplies 
most of the country with the articles in which it 
deals, though, since so many other ports of entry 
have been established throughout the country, 
the amount of the trade has somewhat fallen off. 
The approaches of the East River Bridge skirt 
the Swamp on the north, and a wide thorough- 
fare is replacing Frankfort Street, which runs 
parallel with these approaches. 

The solidity and massiveness of the great 
stone arches which span the streets at the ap- 
i proach of the East River Bridge give perhaps a 
more vivid realization of the enterprise than the 
full view of the bridge from the river, for here 
the sense of proportion, mingled with the effects 
of sky and water, lessens the conception of big- 
ness in detail. A full description of the bridge 
will be found elsewhere. 

Returning now to Broadway, let us take a 
stand on the Post-Oflfice corner at the junction 
of Broadway and Park Row and look at the ani- 
mated scene, than which nothing in the street- 
life of New York is more striking. From morn- 
ing till night there moves by an ever-changing 
procession of vehicles that have poured into the 
great artery from a thousand tributaries, and, to 
cross Broadway at times at this spot, one must 
needs be a sort of animated billiard-ball, with 
power to carom from wheel to wheel, until he 
can safely "pocket" his personal corporosity on 
the opposite walk. The crush of vehicles here 
is sometimes so great as to delay movement for 
ten minutes or more, and it requires the great- 
est energy on the part of the police to disen- 
tangle the dense, chaotic mass and set it in prog- 
ress again. For those who are not obliged to 
cross the choked-up thoroughfare, the scene is 
full of a brief amusement — hack-drivers, truck- 
men, omnibus-drivers, swearing vehemently at 
each other or interchanging all kinds of " chaff" ; 
passengers indignantly railing at the delay, and 
police-officers yelling and waving their clubs in 
their attempts to get the machinery of travel 
again running smoothly. If at such a time a 
fire-engine comes rattling up the street post- 
haste for the scene of a fire, and attempts to en- 
force its right of way, the confusion becomes 
doubly confounded, and the scene a veritable 
pandemonium. Ordinarily, however, such tan- 
gles of traffic do not occur, for this locality is 
fully supplied with policemen, whose main busi- 




Fulton Street, looking toward Brooklyn Ferry. 



16 



NEW YOEK ILLUSTRATED. 



ness it is to facilitate the passage of travel and 
prevent such a blockade as we have described. 

The outlook down Broadway from the Post- 
Office is in all respects picturesque and impres- 
sive, and fills the mind with a vivid sense of the 
immense activity of New York life. In the dis- 
tance the towers of Trinity Church and the 
Equitable Life Insurance Building lift themselves 
as landmarks, and noble buildings thickly stud 
the squares between. The New York Evening 
Post Building and the Western Union Telegraph 
Building catch the eye for their massiveness and 
dignity; and directly opposite the spectator, but 
standing diagonally to each other, the Astor 
House and Herald Building demand the attention 
as representing institutions which have been 
household words in New York for the last forty 
years or more. Up and down this vista roars 
and streams an ocean-tide of travel and traffic, 
and the eye can find food for continual interest 
in its changing kaleidoscope. Well-dressed men 
and women are brushed in the throng by beggars 
and laborers grimed with the dust of work ; and 
grotesquely-attired negroes, with huge advertis- 
ing placards strapped to the front and back, pace 
up and down, in happy ignorance of the incon- 
venience they give to others by taking up a 
double share of room. Fruit and flower stands 
offer their tempting burdens on every corner, 
and retail venders of all kinds peddle their goods, 
and add fresh discord to the din by their shrill 
crying of their wares. About six o'clock in the 
afternoon, however, the feverish activity of this 
region begins to abate, and it is not long before 
the appearance of the scene becomes lethargic 
and quiet. Down-town New York has now 
begun to go to sleep, and it will not be many 
hours before the silence and emptiness will be 
alone relieved by the blaze of lights in the news- 
paper establishments of Printing-House Square 
and the Western Union Telegraph Building, by 
the occasional tramp of the policeman or re- 
porter, or the rattling of a casual carriage over 
the stony pave. This busy part of the city will 
not begin to waken again till about five o'clock 
in the morning, when the numerous street-car 
lines which terminate in this vicinity commence 
to run their cars, bringing down porters, me- 
chanics, and laborers, as the vanguard of the 
great army whose thronging battalions will make 
the new day the repetition of the one before. 

From Chambers Street, the northern bound- 
ary of the City Hall Park, to Fourteenth Street, 
Broadway presents to the eye a picture of active 
business-life in all the departments of trade, ex- 
cept the more heavy and crude articles of mer- 



chandise, such as iron, hardware, food-products, 
etc., which have their headquarters in the lower 
streets. Every square is massively built with im- 
posing structures devoted to dealers in the textile 
fabrics and fancy-goods, and the signs of manu- 
facturers of clothing, boots and shoes, etc., are seen 
on every side. During the busy seasons of the 
year the sidewalks are so encumbered with boxes 
and bales that passage is difficult for the pedes- 
trian, and the great warehouses are ablaze with 
lights nearly all night to accommodate the press- 
ure of business, which taxes the utmost efforts 
of the merchant and his clerks. Nearly all the 
wholesale trade of New York, in the lines indi- 
cated above, is concentrated on this section o^ 
Broadway and several side squares either way 
from the central thoroughfare. 

At Canal Street, which was once the bed of 
a rivulet, the view up and down Broadway is ex- 
ceedingly brilliant and picturesque. As far as 
the eye can reach it gathers in a range of busi- 
ness palaces, representing every variety of taste, 
style, and beauty, while between them and on 
the sidewalk is an ever-changing scene in which 
light, color, and motion, combine to create a 
charm that never tires. There is a fascination 
even in the throng of vehicles, the faces in the 
omnibuses and private carriages, the gay turn- 
outs and handsome equipages ; and in the strange 
commingling of people passing to and fro, repre- 
senting every State and country, every style of 
dress from that of the Oriental to the last fashion 
of the Anglo-Saxon, there is a magnetic attrac- 
tion that compels the stranger to linger and en- 
joy the kaleidoscopic scene. For three miles 
the change is continual, the continuity of effect 
is unbroken; and a walk up or down Broadway 
is one of the pleasantest reminiscences of a visit 
to the metropolis. Yonder is the famous and 
most comfortable St. Nicholas Hotel ; a little far- 
ther up the immense brown-stone form of the 
Metropolitan Hotel, another of our fashionable 
hostelries. At the corner of Bond Street and 
Broadway is the artistic structure erected by 
Brooks Brothers, the clothiers, and nearly oppo- 
site is the Grand Central Hotel, a monster edifice, 
with a marble front eight stories in height and 
surmounted by a Mansard roof. Just around the 
corner, in Bond Street, is the spacious establish- 
ment of D. Appleton & Co., the publishers. It 
is, indeed, impossible to walk many yards with- 
out noticing one of the palaces with which the 
merchants have beautified the city. These, with 
the bustling cosmopolitan throng, make the thor- 
oughfare one of such interest as not to be sur- 
passed by anything in London or Paris. 




The Approach to the East River Bridge. 



18 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



It is a curious feature of the Broadway crowd, 
by-the-way, that its phases are ditferent at dif- 
ferent hours of the day. Early in the morning, 
for instance, you will see the working-people, the 
sewing-girls, and younger clerks, pouring into 
the street from right and left, and hurrying 
downward. At eight or nine o'clock the pro- 
cession is chiefly composed of business-men — 
those wlio fill the counting-rooms and the law- 
offices. From ten to three the ladies appear in 
full force on shopping expeditions, and then the 
tide begins to turn upward. At four o'clock a 
hundred thousand are promenading; a goodly 
proportion being peripatetic fashion-plates, con- 
trived by the cunning of the dressmaker and 
milliner. At six the poorer classes are again 
homeward bound ; and then, until morning, 
Broadway is abandoned to the pleasure-seeker, 
midnight prowler, and poor wretches who have 
shunned the light of day. 

The buildings occupied by the dry-goods and 
other firms on this part of Broadway are, as a 
rule, built of iron, modeled and painted to imi- 
tate white marble, though in a few cases the iron 
is designed to show for what it honestly is in its 
painting and gilding. Above Bleecker Street, on 
this great thoroughfare, the retail dealers in silks, 
satins, gloves, hosiery, articles of use, and orna- 
ments of all descriptions, begin to multiply. 
Principal among the celebrated shops of New 
York is the retail dry-goods house of A. T. Stew- 
art & Co., probably the largest establishment of 
the kind in the world, occupying a spacious mar- 
ble building bounded by Ninth and Tenth Streets 
and Fourth Avenue. It instantly indicates itself 
to the stranger by the line of private carriages 
ranged in its front, and the cohort of coachmen 
and footmen waiting the advent of their mis- 
tresses. It is only by entering " Stewart's " that 
one can obtain an adequate idea of the immen- 
sity of the institution. If the eight floors of this 
building could be spread out on a level, they 
would occupy a space of fifteen acres. In this 
little world of trade there is nothing pertaining 
to the needs of a lady, from hairpins to the car- 
pets with which she furnishes her boudoir, which 
may not be found in its proper department. 

Among the minor parks of New York, Union 
Square is one of the most pretty and noted. Its 
extent is about three and a half acres, and it lies 
between Broadway and Fourth Avenue, and Four- 
teenth and Seventeenth Streets. It has a pleas- 
ant fountain in its center and a number of fine 
shade-trees, and during the summer season its 
benches are thronged with loungers, who while 
away the hours of the day in the shadow of the 



trees watching the mimic rainbow of the fountain. 
In the early morning and late afternoon, this, 
like all the other parks, is the resort of children 
and nurse-maids wheeling baby-carriages, and 
juvenile life lends to its aspect one of its pretti- 
est features. 

Statues of Washington and Lincoln face the 
park on the southeast and southwest corners re- 
spectively, and another, of Lafayette, is almost 
hidden in the foliage, opposite Broadway. On 
Decoration-day, May 30th, these monumental 
bronzes are richly w'reathed with flowers, l^he 
equestrian statue of Washington was modeled 
by Browne, and is fourteen and a half feet in 
height, the entire monument, including the ped- 
estal, being twenty-nine feet. This work has been 
generally and justly admired. The bronze statue 
of Abraham Lincoln, also by Browne, stands on 
a granite pedestal at the opposite angle of the 
square, and is an admirable likeness of the great 
original in form and feature. Perhaps the stiff 
citizen's garb in which the martyr-President is 
represented, though objectionable on account of 
rigidity of outline, better represents the awkward 
but stalwart personality than would a more ar- 
tistic costume. The statue of Lafayette, also of 
bronze, was molded by the celebrated French 
sculptor Bartholdi, the projector of the Liberty 
statue to be erected on Bedloe's Island, and was 
the gift of the French Republic. 

A leaved plaza borders the park on the north 
along Seventeeth Street, where, on special occa- 
sions, a row of ornamental colored gas-lamps are 
lighted. A cottage within the park facing the 
plaza has a balcony for the accommodation of re- 
viewing officers of military parades, and it is also 
used as a platform for public speakers on the oc- 
casion of large mass-meetings. The park is a 
pleasant little oasis of greenery in the midst of a 
busy part of the city, and the rustling of the 
leaves, the twittering of the English sparrows — 
which are not only the faithful guardians of the 
trees in j^rotecting them from the worms, but a 
never-ending source of amusement — and the tin- 
kling of the fountain-spray as it falls back into the 
basin, make a soothing impression on the senses. 

Twenty years ago. Union Square was a fashion- 
able neighborhood, wherein resided many of the 
oldest and wealthiest families of New York ; but 
it has yielded to the march of trade, and great 
changes have been made in its aspect. The fine old 
brown-stone mansions havebeen mostly torn down 
to make way for splendid business structures, and 
long before another decade has passed it will show 
an imposing array of architectural fronts. The 
surroundings of Union Square Park are of much 



20 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



interest, and in many ways make the locality 
attractive to the visitor. North of it is the Ev- 
erett House, a famous old hostelry, which has 
entertained a large number of the most distin- 
guished people who have passed through the 
city for the last quarter of a century. Opposite 
the Everett is the Clarendon Hotel, and several 
squares below, athwart the eastern side of the 
park, the Union Square Hotel, both favorite 
houses of entertainment. Near the corner of 
Broadway and Fourteenth Street is the Union 
Square Theatre, which, within the last seven 
years, has risen to share with Wallack's Theatre 
the honor of presenting to the public the most 
fashionable and artistic performances in the 
country, being devoted principally to the repro- 
duction of Parisian successes, while Wallack's 
Theatre is most widely known as a theatre of 
comedy. The latter theatre, which for many 
years has had its home on the corner of Broad- 
way and Thirteenth Street, will be moved the 
forthcoming season (1881) to the corner of Broad- 
way and Thirty-first Street. 

One square eastward of Union Square is the 
Acaden)y of Music, in which have appeared the 
most celebrated contemporary singers. On a 
gala-night of the opera the adjacent streets even 
to the park itself are packed with carriages wait- 
ing the close of the performance. Union Square 
in the winter, on account of its importance as 
an amusement center, presents its most animated 
aspect from seven to eleven in the evening, after 
which it is nearly deserted, except by policemen 
and the late night-roisterers, who consider their 
day as just begun. That part of Fourteenth 
Street and Fourth Avenue directly opposite the 
statue of Washington is known in theatrical 
slang as the " slave-market," from the large 
number of actors always to be found lounging 
there in the summer, on the alert for an engage- 
ment. 

On the west side of Union Square, corner of 
Fifteenth Street, is the splendid iron edifice of 
Tiffany & Co., the well-known jewelers and sil- 
versmiths, whose establishment is a grand mu- 
seum of the most exquisite articles in jewels, 
gold and silver work, bronzes, statuary, bric-d- 
Irac, and all the costly forms of ornament with 
which wealth delights to surround itself. Splen- 
ilid equipages may be observed in front of this 
palace of art, which employs the finest skill of 
the Old and New World to delight its patrons 
from morning till night, and a continuous stream 
of richly-dressed women pours in and out. No- 
where in New York can the stranger pass an 
hour more agreeably than in viewing the art- 



treasures of this famous place, and nowhere is he 
likely to see the fashionable side of New York 
life more fully represented, except, perhaps, in 
the Academy of Music on a gala-night. Such 
are the principal attractions of Union Square 
Park and its environment, though it is probable 
that, within a few years, owing to inevitable 
changes, some of the surroundings which now 
give the locality so much of its charm will have 
ceased to exist. 

Proceeding up the line of Broadway, which 
somewhat deflects at Fourteenth Street, the 
sight-seer passes by many fine buildings, and 
mingles in a varied stream of pedestrian life full 
of interest and movement. Brilliant shops de- 
voted to jewelry, bric-d-brac, and ornamental 
goods, ladies' apparel, and fancy articles of every 
description, attract the eye, and the groups of 
well-dressed and handsome women standing at 
every show-window make the street-scene even 
more fascinating than the glowing colors shining 
behind the plate-glass. At Twenty-third Street, 
where Broadway and Fifth Avenue intersec*^, we 
reach Madison Square Park, the most delightful 
of the pleasances which exist in the heart of the 
city. This park includes about six acres, bounded 
by Broadway, Madison Avenue, Twenty-third 
and Twenty-sixth Streets, and it may be said to 
be the very heart of the world of amusement, 
gayety, and fashion. 

The park abounds with fine shade-trees, has 
a large fountain, and its trim lawns are inter- 
spersed with splendid beds of fiowers and vari- 
colored plants shaped in geometric designs. The 
numerous settees that border the walks are filled 
with a better class than one observes in the other 
minor city parks, the atmosphere of wealth and 
splendor which walls it in seeming unfavorable 
to the gathering together of the tramps and 
shiftless idlers who may be seen airing their 
tattered garments so often in the other parks. 
Many of the residents of the vicinity and the 
guests of the hotels may be obseiwed reading 
their papers here of a bright spring or summer 
morning, and the air is musical with the prattle 
of rosy and beautiful children, accompanied by 
their white-capped bonnes. The trees are varied 
in character, large, and well- grown, and the care 
with which this park is kept makes it an exquisite 
and most refreshing bit of greenery and color. 
On the south side of the park, adjacent to the 
Broadway corner, a bronze statue of William IL 
Seward is seated on its pedestal, and on the 
upper western border the arm and torch-bearing 
hand of bronze, which will bear the lofty signal- 
flame of the Goddess of Liberty to be erected on 



22 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




Madison Square and Twenty-third Street. 



Bedloe's Island, is mounted for temporary dis- 
play. The bronze statue of Admiral Farragut, 
which was erected in May, 1881, at the north- 
west corner of the park, is the work of the 
sculptor St. Gaudens, and represents the naval 
hero in uniform standing on a pyramidal pedes- 
tal. The attitude is one of stern sobriety and 
repose, and, in spite of the awkward lines of the 
straight-cut garments, the artist has succeeded 
in giving the figure a feeling of strengtli and dig- 
nity very noticeable. The decoration of the 
pedestal is elaborate and peculiar, giving vari- 
ous suggestions of the sea and its characteristic 
life, with much originality of treatment. On the 
Madison Square side of the park, again, a large 
and beautiful drinking-fountain has been recent- 
ly placed, and the various stages and carriages 
which stop there for the horses to drink give a 
quaint and novel aspect to the scene. 

The surroundings of the park are of the most 
striking character. In its immediate vicinity 
are eight or ten of the finest of the New York 
hotels, half a dozen clubs, the best restaurants, 
and several fine tlieatres, not to speak of the pa- 
latial residences on every hand. The march of 
trade has indeed invaded this region in great 
measure, aside from Broadway, which has always 
retained its commercial stamp; but the shops 
are so gay and elegant tliat they rather add to 



than lessen the attractiveness of the ensemble. 
At the junction of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, 
opposite the park, stands a fine monument to 
the memory of Major-General "Worth, a gallant 
soldier of the War of 1812, and the Seminole and 
Mexican campaigns. 

Aside from the splendid houses of entertain- 
ment, such as the Fifth Avenue, Hoffman, Albe- 
marle, Gilsey, Brunswick, etc., which are clus- 
tered in its near vicinity, and offer the stranger 
an embarras de richesses for his choice, we have 
Delmonico's Restaurant on the corner of Fifth 
Avenue and Twenty - sixth Street, and the 
Brunswick Restaurant at the northeast corner 
of the same streets. Both these famous places 
contribute largely to the life and activity of Mad- 
ison Square, as they are frequented by the wealth, 
beauty, and fashion of New York to an extent 
not shared by any of their rivals. Delmonico's 
name has been a household word in the gastro- 
nomic world for many a long year, but during 
the last decade the Brunswick Restaurant has 
begun to compete with its widespread celebrity. 
The throngs of richly-dressed women and men 
that pour in and out of the doors of these palaces 
of the cuisine from early afternoon till late even- 
ing speak well for the culture of the gastronomic 
taste in America. The decorations of the Bruns- 
wick Restaurant are so unique and artistic as to 



STREET SCENES. 



23 



be alone worth a visit. Dining here becomes an 
EBsthetic as well as a physical pleasure, as the eye 
delights itself in the gold, black, and brown orna- 
mentations of wall and ceiling, the pure crystal 
candelabra, the perennial foliage, the constant 
fountain, and the stained-glass windows. 

The promenade in Madison Square on fine 
afternoons is full of animation, and all types of 
feminine beauty are aggregated in a fluttering 
stream of feathers and petticoats. Though all 
the women we see are not pretty, an entrancing 
proportion are, and a still larger proportion are 
attired with a discriminating liberality of taste 
which employs vivid color without a suggestion 
of gaudiness. Another characteristic is the vi- 
vacity of manner, and the abundant use of flow- 
ers, both natural and artificial, as a decoration. 
In the time of violets and roses, the air of this 
overheated city street is as fragrant as a garden. 
Nearly every woman wears a bouquet in her 
breast, and a perfect legion of sidewalk peddlers 
add to the sweetness with small bunches held 
out for sale in baskets and on trays. 

At no time during the year are Fifth Avenue, 
Madison Square, Madison Avenue, and the other 
streets which concentrate in this beautiful portion 
of New York more attractive than in the month 
of May. The wealthy and fashionable classes do 
not begin to leave the city before the middle of 
June, so that in the month of blossoms we see 
the beauty and gayety of the haut ton disport- 
ing themselves under the pleasantest conditions. 



Splendid equipages; handsomely-dressed women, 
buoyant with the atmosphei'e of genial May; 
fine-looking men, worthy successors of those 
whom Thackeray a quarter of a century since 
pronounced the most noble and distinguished- 
looking men in the world ; throngs of beautiful 
children under the care of their nurses — present 
a bright and charming picture to the eye. Fifth- 
Avenuedom is then at its best, for the summer 
birds have not taken their flight, and find an 
irresistible temptation to live out-of-doors as 
much as possible. These gala-days of New York 
beauty and fashion last about a month, when the 
growing heat drives out of the city all who are 
not fastened by necessity. Mr. Wordsworth 
Thompson's painting of this scene, which we 
have engraved, was painted before the Farragut 
statue was erected, which stands in the Park 
nearly opposite the center of the picture. 

Not far from Madison Square and the begin- 
ning of that great region where lives the " upper- 
tendoin " of New York, is the art headquarters 
not only of the city, but the country. This asso- 
ciation is a logical one, for more and more art 
tends to identify itself with fashion and fashion- 
able ways. The days when the artist was a gay 
and rollicking Bohemian, disobedient to the con- 
ventions of society, have now pretty much dis- 
appeared ; and the painter and sculptor study the 
purely commercial and social sides of their profes- 
sion as shrewdly as does the shopkeeper, provid- 
ing for the tastes, wiseor otherwise, of the wealthy 





; rf> 



- njf I'f 'i ' ' ' 'I 



r^r I * >^^^.,' IJ tl*ii^1|C3ri ^ ® 



Broadway, West Side of Madison Square. 



24 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



classes who buy pictures, with the cautious pre- | 
vision of the dealer in carpets or dress-patterns. 
The National Academy of Design is the fore- 
most art institution of the country, situated at 
the northwest corner of Fourth Avenue and 
Twenty-third Street, and an exhibition of new 
paintings is held in the spring of each year. The 
building, in an architectural sense, is one of the 
most striking in the city, full of notable archi- 
tectural features. The plan of the exterior was 
copied from a famous palace in Venice, and the 
gray and white marble and blue-stone used in its 
construction are beautifully blended. The front, 
on Twenty-third Street, is eighty feet long and 
extends on Fourth Avenue to a depth of ninety- 
eight feet nine inches. The double flight of steps 
leading to the main entrance has been skillfully 
made a part of the general design, and, with its 
beautiful carvings and drinking-fountaiu beneath, 
is unique. Within, the vestibule has a floor of 
variegated marbles leading up to the grand stair- 
way, which is massive and imposing. The third 
story is devoted entirely to the exhibition gal- 
leries, which are lighted from the roof. On the 
first and second stories are the offices, lecture- 
rooms, reception-room, and art scliools. These 
schools are free, and are open from the first 
Monday in October in each year until the first 
of June the following year, continuously. All 
students first enter the antique school. Appli- 
cants for admission must file an application stat- 
ing name, address, place of nativity, what previ- 
ous training, if any, a reference as to personal 
character, etc., upon a blank form obtained on 
application to the. Corresponding Secretary of 
the Academy. The applicant must submit to the 
Council a shaded drawing from a cast of some 
part of the human figure, which, if approved, 
will secure admission to the antique class, from 
which pupils are advanced to the life class upon 
executing in the school an approved drawing of 
a full-length statue. Oil- and water-colors may 
be used by permission of the professor in charge. 
Punctual attendance is required, under a penalty 
of forfeiture of membership ; but members may 
attend one or all of the morning, afternoon, and 
.night sessions, as they elect upon entering. The 
schools are open to both sexes, and tiie principles 
of art are taught through the study of antique 
sculpture and the living model, both nude and 
draped, by means of lectures on anatomy, per- 
spective, and other subjects, through portrait, 
sketch, and composition classes, and in such 
other ways as are from time to time provided. 
The first three days of the spring exhibitions are 
known as artists'-day, varnishing-day, and pri- 



vate-view. Admission on the last of these days 
is eagerly sought, and cards of invitation are 
sent to the leading people of New York society. 
At such times the Academy of Design is thronged 
with the beauty and wealth of New York soci- 
ety, and the richly-attired gathering makes al- 
most as brilliant a show as the pictures on the 
walls, which nominally the people come to see. 
A younger institution, the Society of American 
Artists, is progressing with such lusty vigor that, 
though as yet it has no permanent home, it prom- 
ises by-and-by to equal if not sui-pass the parent 
trunk of which it is an oifshoot. 

Directly opposite the Academy of Design, at 
the southwest corner of Fourth Avenue ^nd 
Twenty-third Street, is the building of the Young 
Men's Christian Association, a highly-ornamental 
structure to this part of the city. It is among 
the finest specimens of the Renaissance style of 
architecture in the metropolis. The roof is of 
the steep Mansard pattern, presenting towers of 
equal height at each corner of the building, and 
a large tower (windowed) over the entrance on 
Twenty-third Street. The material is New Jer- 
sey brown-stone and the yellowish marble from 
Ohio, in almost equal parts, the latter composing 
the decorative portion. The building contains 
twenty-five apartments, including gymnasium, 
library, lecture-rooms, offices, etc. 

Let us now retrace our steps and scan the be- 
ginnings of a street which has a reputation as 
wide as the civilized world, and has given name 
to a great social force in American life — Fifth 
Avenue. Leaving Broadway and proceeding 
through Waverley Place, three short squares bring 
us to Washington Square. The park, which is a 
beautiful one, shaded with very large, full trees, 
has two fountains, and is a highly picturesque and 
attractive resort, from its surroundings, though 
the current of fashion has long since passed north- 
ward. On the east side the New York University 
Building lifts its castellated bastions and turrets 
like some old raediteval donjon, and lends a pecul- 
iar aspect of old-fashioned quaintness to the scene. 
During the genial summer days this spot of shade 
and verdure is much patronized by those waifs and 
strays of humanity who are either too lazy to 
work or are unable to obtain it, and the knights 
of rags and tatters may be observed here smok- 
ing their pipes philosophically during the day- 
time, or reposing on the benches at night, in 
larger numbers than anywhere else in the city. 
The curious observer of human nature can find 
in the flotsam and jetsam of human wreck, who 
float in here as in some quiet cove, a wonderful 
field for pursuing his favorite study, as all grades 



26 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



of poverty and shiftlessness are well represented. 
The park is also a favorite play-ground for chil- 
dren, and their bright faces and active little fig- 
ures lend a cheery look to what might otherwise 
be the too grim forlornness of the tramp and 
idler. The north side of Wasliington Square is 
peculiarly impressive and interesting, from the 
style of the residences, many of which are still 
inhabited by rich old families too much in love 
with past associations, and the beauty of the lo- 
cation, to yield to the behests of fashion. The 
houses are built of red brick with white-marble 
trimmings and marble stoops. The peculiarly 
bright and refreshing aspect of such houses in 
the wilderness of brown-stone can hardly be de- 
scribed too enthusiastically ; and, as they are for 
the most part kept with the most perfect clean- 



liness and taste, the pedestrian lingers here with 
a sense of warm appreciation of what may be 
called an old-fashioned novelty. 

Fifth Avenue, perhaps the most famous 
street in America as the representative locality 
in which for more than thirty years fashionable 
New York has expended its love of lavish dis- 
play, begins at the center of Washington Square. 
The wealth and social pride of New York have 
had their strongholds at Bowling Green, East 
Broadway, Bond and Bleecker Streets, and 
Washington Square, respectively. Now Fifth 
Avenue is the successor, and where the next 
grand concentration of the aristocracy of money 
will be it is not easy to forecast. 

Fifth Avenue is a broad, straight avenue run- 
ning to Fifty-ninth Street, thence along tlie east 




Twenty-third Street, from corner of Fourth Avenue. 
(^Young Men's Christian Association Building on the left ; National Academy of Design on the right.) 



side of Central Park, and to Mount Morris at 
One Hundred and Twentieth Street, which 
breaks its continuity. It begins again at One 
Hundred and Twenty-fourth Street, and runs to 
the Harlem River. Probably there is not an- 
other street in the world wherein are more ele- 
gant and imposing private residences, furnished 
with princely magnificence, or more exquisite 
collections of those trifles of art and taste which 
bespeak a high order of cultivation. From the 
southern terminus to Central Park, a distance 
of two and a half miles, it presents an un- 
broken array of splendid dwellings and noble 
churches, with exception of here and there in its 
lower portion where business establishments 
which deal for example in musical instruments, 
pictures, jewelry, and articles of a costly and or- 



namental character, have encroached on its fash- 
ionable private character. Many of the edifices 
in this long stretch of palatial domiciles possess 
marked beauty of architectural design, and all 
of tliem are built in massive and splendid blocks 
for the most part of brown-stone. In spite of 
the uniformity of appearance, which comes of a 
general use of the same building material and a 
similar style of structure, sufficient variety and 
character are given the street by the numerous 
splendid church edifices and the few hotels and 
private dwellings of a differing style of archi- 
tecture to relieve the somber and massive dig- 
nity which would otherwise stamp the aspect of 
the street. 

It would be impracticable to describe in de- 
tail the many objects of interest which are to 




Fifth Avenue Scenes. 



28 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




Fifth Avenue, at corner of Twenty-first Street. 



be seen on this avenue ; to penetrate its huge 
club-houses, its large and expensive libraries, 
choice picture-galleries, private billiard-rooms, 
and exquisitely furnished parlors, and a drive 
over its Belgian pavement, and a glance at the 
exterior features of the street, must suffice. 

The real glory of the avenue is to be seen 
best on Sunday after the morning service. Fash- 
ion in all its strangest conglomerations and beau- 
ty in its most striking attire then exhibit them- 
selves on the promenade. The street is also a 
favorite highway for the owners of equipages en 
route to and from the Park, and every pleasant 
afternoon witnesses a display of showy animals 
and vehicles almost unequaled, certainly not sur- 
passed, in Europe or America. Next to a fash- 
ionable race-course it is the place above all oth- 
ers in New York for the exhibition of handsome 
horse-flesh. 

Nearly every square in Fifth Avenue presents 
something of interest to the eye of the stranger. 
At the corner of Eightb Street is the Brevoort 
House, an aristocratic family hotel, which is 
more largely patronized by wealthy foreigners 
than any other hostelry in the city. At the cor- 
ner of Fifteenth Street is the Manhattan Club, 
famous as the political headquarters of what is 
known in the expressive slang of the day as the 



"swallow-tail democracy," and immediately op- 
posite are to be noticed the massive walls of the 
Haight apartment-house, for a long time, before 
the French-flat system had got such a stronghold 
in New York, the most splendid establishment 
of the kind in the city. 

At the corner of Twenty-first Street are the 
Union and Lotos Clubs, the former embracing 
a greater aggregate of wealth among its mem- 
bers than any club in the city, and the latter 
the well-known resort of the art and literary 
professions. At the corner of Eighteenth Street 
are the splendid Music Hall and Warerooms of 
Ohickering & Co., the piano-forte manufactur- 
ers, and a few blocks below are the piano show- 
rooms of "Weber and Knabe. Knoedler's art- 
store and picture-gallery, a branch of Goupil's 
of Paris, attracts the eye on the corner of Twen- 
ty-second Street. Here tlie visitor to New York 
always finds a delightful place for whiling away 
half an hour, and it is a convenient stopping- 
place on the way up Fifth Avenue. 

Passing through Madison Square, which has 
been described previously, we continue our way 
up the magnificent avenue, finding continual food 
to attract the eye and excite the interest. The 
window-fronts we shall find during the summer 
months decorated with tiled flower-boxes, laden 



STREET SCENES. 



29 



with a perfect glory of blooms in all the colors 
of the rainbow. This is a charming characteris- 
tic of the leading residence streets in the aristo- 
cratic portion of the city, and speaks volumes 
for the taste and lt)ve of beauty inherent even 
among those who may have made their money 
so suddenly as to be without the social and 
sBsthetic culture which makes wealth the most 
enjoyable. Fifth Avenue is exceptionally no- 
ticeable for this lavish display of flowers on the 
window-ledges, that seem to be literally blossom- 
ing out of the brown-stone a little distance away. 
When we reach the corner of Thirty-fourth 
Street, the eye is instantly arrested by the state- 
ly marble palace built by the late A. T. Stewart, 
until recently justly regarded as the most costly 
and luxurious private residence on the continent. 
The reception and drawing rooms, the dining, 
breakfast, and sleeping rooms, are very beautiful 
in decoration and furnishing. We are now in a 
region of an almost unbroken line of architect- 
ural beauty; handsome churches and mansions 
abound, and the wonderful changes that are 
taking place in the upper portion of New York 
are written on every side. Superb mansions are 
continually being pulled down to make way for 
structures still more palatial, and the rage for 
surpassing each other in the splendor of their 
domiciles seems to have taken possession of our 
merchant, banker, and railroad princes. 



The magnificent mansions built by members 
of the Vanderbilt family, of which we give an 
engraving on the next page, on the square be- 
tween Fifty-first and Fifty-second Streets, on 
Fifth Avenue, and on the northwestern corner 
of Fifty-second Street, may be regarded as the 
finest houses in New York. Those occupying 
the first-named square are of brown-stone, elab- 
orately carved and ornamented. They are con- 
nected together by a gallery into which the 
main entrance leads. The house on the upper 
Fifty-second Street corner is built of light-gray 
stone, and is most artistic and unique in its 
architectural front. Another member of the 
Vanderbilt family is building a grand house of 
red brick, with heavy trimmings of gray stone, 
at the upper corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty- 
seventh Street. These noble structures rank 
among the finest private residences in the 
world. 

At no time is there more animation in Fifth 
Avenue than on the day when the Coacliing 
Club makes its annual parade, which occurs on 
the last Saturday in May. Every door and win- 
dow on the most brilliant of our streets is pic- 
torial with the faces of handsome women, and 
crowds of the jeunesse doree of both sexes as- 
semble at every place of vantage to wait the 
enlivening show of the four-in-hands as they 
dash by. The Coaching Club was instituted in 




Thirty-fourth Street, corner of Fifth Avenue. 



30 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



New York in 1876, for the purpose of en- 
couraging four-in-hand driving. There are now 
twenty - six members, representing twenty - one 
coaches. The meet is always in front of the 







Hotel Brunswiclt, corner of Fiftli Avenue and 
Twenty-seventh Street, and the route through 
Fifth Avenue and the Parlv, thence down the 
avenue again to Washington Square, and back 
again to the starting-place. The scene is of 



the most enlivening kind as the coaches dash 
off at speed, the guards sounding the " Tally- 
ho ! " on their long horns. This brisk music is 
kept up from time to time during the trip, and 
the long-drawn, mellow 
notes appear to add fresh 
fire to the horses as well 
as animation to the gay 
chatter of the charming 
and stylishly-dressed beau- 
ties who sit on the boxes 
and till the top seats in 
company with the gentle- 
men drivers. To be in- 
vited to ride on such an 
occasion is a brevet of 
fashionable eminence, dear 
to the heart of every wom- 
an who sighs to shine in 
the glittering van of social 
life. 

Four-in-hand coaching 
has thriven marvelously 
since its first institution in 
New York, but it is not a 
thing indigenous to the soil, 
and probably will never 
quite arouse the genuine 
enthusiasm which it evokes 
in the land where it is " na- 
tive to the manner born." 
It has its root in the in- 
stincts of that large class 
of wealthy young men who 
have bravely set themselves 
to remodeMng the crudities 
of American society by the 
British standard, and be- 
lieve that " nothing good 
can come out of Nazareth." 
It is even said by certain 
satirists that some of these 
Anglo - maniacs cultivate 
the misplacement of the 
7t's, but this is probably a 
libel. However the coach- 
ing fever may have been an 
exotic, it certainly develops 
some picturesque features 
of life which are not with- 
out their pleasant side. 
While the Club as such only parades once a year, 
individual members show their drags, and strive 
to witch the feminine world by the way they 
handle their ribbons, nearly every fine day in the 
Park during the spring and early summer. Some 



32 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



of them are always to be seen at the Jerome 
Park races, and during the summer months at 
Newport — that most fashionable and exclusive 
of watering-places. 

The origin of the Coaching Club appears to 
have been in the enterprise of Colonel Delan- 
cey Kane, who startled the New York world 
in 1875 by running a coach daily between the 
Brunswick Hotel and Castle Inn, New Rochelle, 
in imitation of the young English aristocrats, who 
had taken in similar manner to becoming public 
Jehus. This noble example quickly inspired 
other rich owners and lovers of horse-flesh, and 
several regular excursions were announced, but 



only to be withdrawn afterward, the original 
instigator of this character of enterprise having 
been the only one to carry it out systematically, 
though a regular club of coaching experts was 
formed. It is understood that a large number 
of the gilded youths who belong to the London 
coaching clubs do act as drivers on several de- 
lightful excursion routes out of London, and are 
thus the means of bestowing genuine pleasure on 
that portion of the public who love the breezy 
downs, the stately hedgerows, and the swiftly 
changing forms of summer pomp and beauty to 
be enjoyed behind four splendid roadsters ; but 
so far the enthusiasm of the Coaching Club of 




Fifth Avenue and Fifty-sixth Street. 



New York seems in only one case to have settled 
into this useful form. 

As we approach Central Park on Fifth Ave- 
nue the stately and palatial homes of our rich 
men do not show in the least any declension 
from the dignity of the street — many of them, 
indeed, displaying unique and striking character- 
istics not observable farther down town. The 
beautiful architecture of tiie porches, which 
will be more specially referred to in another 
place, catches the eye instantly, and indicates 
the operation of a certain individuality of taste, 
which does not rest content with mere splen- 
did commonplace, but struggles to express that 



conception of a home which makes both the 
exterior and interior of the temple wherein is 
set the shrine of one's household gods the out- 
come of adjustment between the dwelling and 
the dwellers. 

The fine residence square at Fifth Avenue and 
Fifty-sixth Street, built of Caen- stone, though 
not specially noticeable in its architectural orna- 
ment, attracts attention from the happy union 
of lightness with the idea of mass and dignity. 
The low, roomy porches, the broad windows, 
and the Mansard roofs, give a genial, home-like 
aspect to these edifices, which more lavish ex- 
penditure miglit sometimes fail to attain. In 



34 



NEW YOEK ILLUSTRATED. 



this portion of the street adjoining the park one 
can not help observing the charming appearance 
of tlie sidewalks on a bright, sunshiny day, cre- 
ated by the great number of children going to 
and from the park, from boys and girls rolling 
their hoops and spinning their tops, to baby-car- 
riages laden with their infant freight and wheeled 
by nurses. 

The street imme^liately east of Fifth Avenue, 
Madison Avenue, rivals the former for about 
two miles in the number and elegance of its 
fashionable residences. Beginning at Madison 



Square, its homes, its churches, and its club- 
houses are of the same splendid character al- 
ready noticed, until we approach Central Park. 
Here it still retains something of the roughness 
of a new thoroughfare. Probably in the course 
of another year this noble avenue will be com- 
plete, when it wiU be unsurpassed for the impos- 
ing character of its architecture. 

Strolling eastward from Madison Avenue, we 
next come to a street of exceptional charm and 
attractiveness in Park Avenue, as that portion 
of Fourth Avenue which lies between Thirty- 




Elevated Railway in Third Avenue. 



fourth Street and the Grand Central Railway 
Station is called. It is almost in the center of 
Murray Hill, the ultra-fashionable portion of the 
city, and yet its position isolates it from the 
bustle and the noise to which both Fifth and 
Madison Avenues are subjected- This thor- 
oughfare is built over the tunnel of the Fourth 
Avenue Railway line, and this peculiarity of po- 
sition, united with the great width of the street, 
makes possible the highly ornamental and effec- 
tive character of its ensemhle. 



At regular intervals in the center of the ave- 
nue are neatly railed inclosures of green sod, 
with grated apertures through which light and 
air are supplied to the tunnel beneath. These 
miniature parks (whence the name of the ave- 
nue) are planted with shrubs which have already 
attained a fine growth, and in some cases flow- 
ers; and they give the aspect of the thorough- 
fare an indescribably peaceful and rustic charm, 
which exists in no other New York street located 
in the heart of the city. Fine roadways run on 



36 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



either side of the center, and here we observe a 
noble display of carriages on a pleasant day. 
Park Avenue has for some time been a favorite 
location with our wealthy people, and only its 
shortness prevents it from being a street which 
would more than rival the other aristocratic lo- 
calities of the city in its repute as a representa- 
tive home of wealth and social prestige. 

Near the northwest corner of Thirty-fourth 
Street and Park Avenue is the Presbyterian 
Church of the Covenant, built in the Lombardo- 
Gothic style, and at the corner of Thirty-third 
Street is the Park Avenue Hotel, which is one 
of the finest of New York hostelries. Without 
attempting to enumerate in detail the numerous 
fine structures on this avenue, we must con- 
tent ourselves with calling attention to the gen- 
erally unique aspect of its appearance, which 
challenges admiration as sometliing apart from 
all other thoroughfares in tlie Empire City, 

Nothing contributes more to give characteris- 
tic quality to the street-scenes of New York, on 
several of its streets and avenues, than the ele- 
vated railway system, which is found in no other 
city of the world. Whether it has improved the 
appearance of the portions of the city through 
which it passes is a matter of individual opinion ; 
but assuredly the change is a most notable one. 
At the outset there was bitter opposition on the 
part of shopkeepers and householders, but this 
lias for tlie most part subsided ; and it is now 
generally acknowledged that business in Third 
and Sixth Avenues, which are the most intimately 
affected by the elevated roads, has been improved 
by what first threatened to be a detriment. 

Apart from all other considerations, it is gen- 
erally conceded that the vexed problem of rapid 
transit has been solved in a practical and effi- 
cient manner. The long and narrow conforma- 
tion of the city renders comparatively few lines 
necessary, and obviates for the most part the 
dangers and difficulties which might arise from 
frequent junctions and street-crossings. The 
first line in this rapid-transit system to be con- 
structed was the old Greenwich Street and Ninth 
Avenue road, on the west side, the motive-power 
of which was originally designed to be by sta- 
tionary engines, but these soon gave way to loco- 
motives. This line was vastly improved by the 
construction of a double track from South Ferry, 
at the extreme southern end of the city, to Cen- 
tral Park. The same corporation has also built 
a double-track road on the east side, from the 
City Hall (just opposite which is to be the en- 
trance of the stone causeway of the East River 
Bridge) to Chatham Square, and thence through 



the Bowery and Third Avenue, along which thor- 
oughfare it extends to Harlem and One Hundred 
and Twenty-ninth Street. The structure varies 
according to the character of the street in which 
it is located. Front and Pearl being narrow, the 
roadway is bridged from curb to curb by trans- 
verse lattice-girders; the Bowery being wide, 
the tracks are carried upon separate rows of pil- 
lars on each side of the street; while on Third 
Avenue they are erected upon a line of columns 
at each side of the street-car tracks, and connected 
at the top by light, open, elliptic arch-girders. A 
clear idea of the diflTerent structures and the roll- 
ing-stock maybe obtained from our illustrations. 

To the business-man, living far up to^n, the 
elevated roads are so valuable that he now won- 
ders how he could have dispensed with them so 
long. As a mode of access to theatres and other 
places of amusement their importance grows 
with immense strides. The value of real estate 
has been largely enhanced in the up-town dis- 
tricts, and building greatly stimulated. The ef- 
fects of these roads have only begun to be fully 
appreciated by the public. 

The Metropolitan Elevated Railway, on the 
west side, begins at the rear of Trinity Church 
and runs to Central Park — the route being through 
New Church Street, Church Street, Murray Street, 
College Place, West Broadway, South Fifth Ave- 
nue, Amity Street, and Sixth Avenue, to the 
park. At Fifty-third Street a branch debouches 
to Ninth Avenue, whence it proceeds to One- 
Hundred and Tenth Street, crosses to Eighth 
Avenue, and thence extends to the Harlem Riv- 
er (One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street). Until 
recently this was the terminus of the road, but the 
completion of the bridge across the Harlem River 
now enables the trains to connect with the New 
York City & Northern Railroad, for High Bridge, 
Fordham, Yonkers, Tarrytown and other points, 
to Brewsters, five miles distant. The equipment 
of tliis road is excellent. The cars are duplicates 
of the Pullman palace-cars. The seats liave spring 
cushions, upholstered with brown morocco leath- 
er, and are placed two-by-two at each side of 
the aisle, except at the ends, where they are 
ranged longitudinally around the car, the object 
of this arrangement being to leave enough space 
near the doors for the ingress and egress of pas- 
sengers. The windows are wide and high, and 
are of plate-glass with adjustable up-blinds. The 
exteriors are a very delicate shade of green. The 
stations, designed by the celebrated landscape 
artist, J. F. Cropsey, are all that could be de- 
sired. The average length of the platforms is 
one hundred and thirty feet, the average width 




The ^/Vest Side Elevated Railroad at llOth Street. 



38 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 








eleven feet, and the averaf2;e height twenty 
feet. The passengers reach them hj three 
short flights of steps, covered by pavilion 
roofs, and lighted by suspended gas-lamps. 
At the head of the steps there is a balcony, 
from which the passengers enter a ticket- 
office leading to the platform, and at each side 
of the entrance there is a waiting-room — one 
for ladies and the other for gentlemen. The 
waiting-rooms are furnished with black walnut, 
and finished with yellow pine touched and 
stained with variegated colors ; lighted by gas, 
heated and provided with separate toilet and 
retiring rooms. The platform is covered from 
end to end by a pavilion roof, the lines of which 
are picturesquely broken by wrought-iron crest- 
ings and finials, which give the whole structure 
a graceful and uncommon appearance. 

The Second Avenue Elevated line, which is 
a branch of the Metropolitan Elevated Railway 
Company, extends from the Battery to Harlem 
River, and it is ultimately proposed that it shall 
cross the river on a bridge to be built, and have 
its terminus, at some point not yet fixed, in "West- 
chester County. The cars used on the branches 
of the Metropolitan Elevated Railway are far 
more comfortable and elegant than those used 
on the Ninth and Third Avenue lines, which 
constitute the New York Elevated. Both the 
roads, including the four lines, have within the 
last two years been leased to a corporation 




West Street, near Canal Street. 

known as the Manhattan Company, the object 
having been to harmonize conflicting interests 
and secure uniformity of management. 

The most striking impression made on the 
raind by the Elevated Railroads, as an example 
of skillful and audacious engineering, is at One 
Hundred and Tenth Street, between Eighth and 
Ninth Avenues. Here the substructure attains 
the remarkable height of sixty-three feet, and 
the massive iron beams and girders, owing to 
their great elevation, appear too frail to bear 
the burden imposed on them. As one drives 
under this giant curved bridge, and sees the 
trains gliding far over his head in the air, the 
imagination is fascinated with the thought of the 
daring of science which overcomes the greatest 
difficulties by the precision and thoroughness 
with whicli it adapts its means to its ends. 

The fare on all the roads from the lower 
termini to the Harlem River is ten cents, except 
between the hours of 4.30 and 7.30 in the even- 
ing, and the same hours relatively in the morn- 
ing. From South Ferry to Central Park the run- 



STREET SCENES. 



39 



ning time is about twenty-five minutes. " What 
is there to prevent the train from tumbling into 
the street?" asks a timid reader. Within each 
rail, and liigher than it, is an exceedingly strong 
timber firmly bolted to the cross-ties, and the 
plan of the tracks is such that, in case of any 
breakage of wheel or axle, the body of the cars 
can only fall a few inches before it comes in con- 
tact with this guard, which also holds the wheels 
against the track. A better criterion than this 



of the safety of the system is the fact that there 
have been so few accidents, and nearly all of 
these in the case of employees, become bold and 
reckless through long custom. Without any 
clamor, straining, or ringing of bells, the train 
glides out of the station along the track, rrfnning 
between stations at the rate of about thirty miles 
an hour, and making, with stoppages, about 
twelve miles an hour. It is controlled by at- 
mospheric breaks and electric signals, and can 




40 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




be brought to a standstill in a little more than 
its own length. The stoppages are made with 
scarcely any jolting, and with very little delay. 
The platforms at the rear and front are inclosed 
by iron railings and gates, which are not opened 
until the train is still, and are closed the mo- 
ment it moves again. Such is the Rapid-Transit 
System of New York, which probably could not 
be surpassed in its general adaptation to the 
needs of the city and people. 

No student of New York street-life can af- 
ford to overlook some of the busy and character- 



istic scenes which are to be observed in those 
business localities adjacent to the wharves and 
docks, where the shipping interests create an 
activity and atmosphere peculiar to themselves. 
The streets, always the dirtiest and most un- 
sightly in New York, perhaps necessarily so, are 
choked up with heavy drays, trucks, baggage 
and freight wagons, so that the chaos seems al- 
most inextricable. The roughest of the laboring 
classes find employment in these regions, and 
sulphurous oaths may be heard at every turn, em- 
phasized from time to time by a furious fisticuff 



STREET SCENES. 



41 



combat. The low "dives" and drinking-shops 
that infest these streets contribute largely to the 
confusion, and help to make an active super- 
vision of the police more necessary than else- 
where. The importance of the business repre- 
sented in the bustle and movement of such 
thoroughfares as West Street on the North River 
front, and South Street on the East River front, 
can hardly be over-estimated. Over the ferries 
which cross the North River pours 
a constant tide of passengers ^^ 
and freight. Nearly all the , ' "^" 
great railways have their 
freight-depots either 
in Jersey City ,^, 
or at the North |i| 
River wharves ~^ 
of the New 
York side, 
and the im- 
mensity of 
traflBc is elo- 
quently sug- 
gested in the 
turmoil and 
tangle of the 
express and 
baggage wag- 
ons, and the 
drays and 
trucks con- 
stantly ar- 
riving and 
departin g. 
When we 
cross to the 
East River 
front, we 
reach the lo- 
cality where 
the world's 
commerce 
declares itself 

in a forest of tall masts. Here again we have 
confusion worse confounded in the sights and 
sounds of street-life, but, beneath the apparent 
chaos and disorder, the machinery which moves 
the business world and puts forth its invisible 
connections to every part of the land works 
with the unfailing force of some ponderous en- 
gine. 

While touching those sides of New York life 




Tenement-Houses. 



Washington, and Gansevoort Streets, known as 
the Market-Wagon Stand, in the early morn- 
ing, when the market- wagoners fetch in their 
produce from the country. For nearly a mile 
within a block or two of the water-front the 
thoroughfares are packed close with the wagons 
from which New York draws its supply of vege- 
tables. Farmers, gardeners, and huckster-women, 
with wholesome tan on the hands and faces, 
make the early hours busy with 
_^^^ their traflBc, and bring to the 

air of the city the scent of 
the green fields and 
flowers of the rural 
districts. By 7 
A M., however, 
these country 
visitors have 
all departed, 
and the city 
again re- 
sumes its 
furious life 
of toil and 
trade. 

While the 
sight-seer 
amuses him- 
self with 
studying the 
aspects of life 
and business 
adjoining the 
water-line of 
New York, 
he may, if 
he will, pen- 
etrate in a 
short walk to 
the heart of 
the tenement 
house region, 
where pover- 
ty and wretchedness present their most distress- 
ing forms. The vilest groggeries are sown thick 
on every block, and reeling men and women illus- 
trate the threadbare moral as old as the world, 
that vice and misery go hand in hand. A glance 
at the region of rookeries, however, suffices, and 
we will pass to pleasanter scenes. With a brief 
reflection. Attempts have been made to solve 
the problem of model tenement-houses for the 



which have a picturesqueness all their own, we i poor, but in a very imperfect way. Both in Lon- 
must not omit to call attention to the appearance don and Paris systematic eflforts have been made 
of the whole congeries of streets in the vicinity | with fair success in this direction. New York 
of the block bounded by West, Little Twelfth, 5 philanthropy should follow this noble example. 



42 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



BUILDINGS. 




City Hall and Ne 



■^VTEW YORK, as behooves the greatest and 
-L> most populous city of the New World, and 
one of the richest capitals on the globe, abounds, 
at every hand, with noble buildings, public and 
private, the latter of which compare favorably 
with those of any of the centers of the Old-World 
civilization. It goes without saying that we can 
not boast of those time-worn and picturesque old 
edifices which are the delight of the artist, and 
api)eal so powerfully to the historic imagination. 
But, aside from these heritages of former ages, 
which add so much to the fascination of Euro- 
pean capitals, the metropolis of America is in 
many ways notable for the striking character of 
its architecture. 

The City Hall, wherein is located the head- 
quarters of the Municipal Government, stands 
in the Park, between the Post-Office and the 
County Court-House, and was erected between 
the years 1803 and 1812, at a cost of more than 
half a million dollars, the location then being 
on the outskirts of the city. The edifice is of 
white marble, with a rear wall of brown-stone, 



in the Italian style, the dimensions being two 
hundred and sixteen feet long by one hundred 
and five deep. In contains the Mayor's office. 
Common Council Oliamber, and other city of- 
fices, and the City Library. The "Governor's 
Room," on the second floor, is used for oflicial 
receptions, and it contains the desk on which 
George Washington penned his first message to 
Congress, the chairs used by the first Congress, 
the chair in which Washington was inaugurated 
first President of the United States, and a gallery 
of paintings, embracing portraits of many of the 
mayors of the city, State Governors, and leading 
national officers and Revolutionary chieftains, 
mostly by well-known artists. The building is 
surmounted by a cupola containing a four-dial 
clock, which is illuminated at night by gas. This 
building has been the scene of many noteworthy 
episodes in city, State, and national affairs. Al- 
though the first of the important public buildings 
erected in New York, it is generally conceded 
to be unexcelled in purity and beauty of design. 
The New Court-IIouse, which stands close at 



BUILDINGS. 



43 



hand, will, when fully completed, be a structure 
fully worthy of a great municipal corporation. 
It is constructed of white marble, and, in all its 
details, interior and exterior, unites strength, 
elegance, and solidity. The prevailing order of 
architecture is Corinthian, and the general effect 
of its proportions is striking. The structure is 
three stories in height, two hundred and fifty 
feet long by one hundred and fifty feet wide, 
and the crown of the dome is to be two hundred 
and ten feet above the sidewalk. It has been 
suggested that the tower crowning the dome 
should be converted into a lighthouse as a land- 
mark for mariners, but this point has not been, 
so far, fully decided. The portico and steps, 
with the grand columns, on the Chambers Street 
front, are said to be the finest piece of work of the 
kind in America. The interior of the edifice is 
equally elaborate and complete, the beams and 
staircases being of iron, and the finishing of hard 
wood. The State Courts and several of the 
city departments have their headquarters in the 
building. There was a good deal of scandal con- 
nected with the erection of the building, as it 
was one of the chief vehicles of peculation by 
the " Ring " in 1869-70, large sums appropriated 
for its construction finding their way into the 
pockets of the existing city ofiicials. The dome 
shown in the illustration has not yet been 
erected. 

Among the notable public buildings, the Cus- 



tom-House, on the corner of Wall and William 
Streets, attracts attention from its solid and 
massive appearance. This edifice, formerly the 
Merchants' Exchange, is a huge pile of Quincy 
granite, two hundred by one hundred and sixty 
feet, and seventy-seven feet high. The Wall 
Street portico has twelve front, four middle, and 
two rear columns, each of granite, thirty-eight 
feet bigh, and four and a half feet in diameter. 
The rotunda is eighty feet bigh, and the dome 
is supported on eight pilasters of fine Italian 
variegated marble. The cost of the building 
and ground was one million eight hundred thou- 
sand dollars. It is said to be entirely inadequate 
for its present use, so rapidly has the commerce 
of the port of New York expanded, and the erec- 
tion of a new custom-house has been strongly 
urged. 

The most imposing of the public edifices ot 
New York is the Post-Otfice and United States 
Court Building, at the junction of Park Row and 
Broadway. No post-oflice building in the world, 
we believe, exceeds this in size. The only ma- 
terials used in its construction are granite, iron, 
brick, and glass; the former coming from an 
island off the coast of Maine. The style of ar- 
chitecture adopted is that known as the Doric, 
modified, however, by the Renaissance. The 
north front of the building is two hundred and 
ninety feet in length, the Broadway front three 
hundred and forty feet, and the Park Row front 




Custom-House, Wall Street. 



44 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




Post Office, and U. S. Court Building. 



three hundred and twenty feet in the clear. On 
each of these two fronts, however, there is an 
angle which, running back some distance, and 
then projecting, forms the entrance looking 
down Broadway. The entire width of this front 
is one hundred and thirty feet. These entering 
angles and projecting portico give this front 
a very hold and striking appearance. In the 
original design it was intended that the building 
should have a cellar, a basement, three stories, 
and also an attic ; but, through an after-thought 
of the architect, a fourth story has been added. 
The roof is of the Mansard style, the upright 
portion being covered with slate, and the flat 
portion with copper. In accordance with the 
plans of the architect, the basement consists of 
one vast department, which is devoted to the 
sorting of letters and making up of the mails. 



The first floor is used as the receiving depart- 
ment; comprising the money-order and regis- 
tering offices, stamp and envelope bureaus, and 
postmaster's and secretaries' private rooms. On 
the second and third floors are the United States 
Court rooms, and the attic supplies rooms to the 
janitor, watchmen, etc. There are no fewer 
than twelve elevators for the various purposes 
of the establishment, and for light and heat the 
most perfect contrivances known to art have 
been adopted. It was completed in the summer 
of 1875, and first occupied September 1st of that 
year. 

We derive from an article in "Scribner's 
Magazine" a few interesting statistics. About 
one hundred and thirty-four million letters, etc., 
are delivered annually, and an equal number are 
sent away. Over twelve hundred men are em- 



46 



NEW YORK ILLUSTEATED. 




City Prison or " I he Tombs 



ployed, and communication is kept up with 
nearly thirty-six thousand offices. 

As the letters are consigned to the mail 
through the various " drops " in the corridors, 
they are " faced up " or put with aU their di- 
rected sides facing the same way. As fast as 
they fall upon a table a man prepares them for 
the stamper, and after the stamper comes the 
separator, who puts the letters for each mail to- 
gether ; after him the mail-maker takes a hand 
and verifies every letter in each mail, ties them 
into a bundle and puts on each a printed label 
marked with its destination, and stamped with 
his own name. When the packages are opened 
on the postal car, the route agent marks what- 
ever errors there may be in them upon the labels 
and returns these to the New York Post-Office. 
A rigid account of these errors is kept, and 
every man's percentage of correctness for a given 
time is set opposite his name, on a sheet that is 
conspicuously posted in the office. Some men 
have become so accurate that they will have for 
several months a clean record, not having made 
a single mistake in the mailing of a letter. This 
accuracy is one of the tests upon which the sala- 
ries are graded from time to time, and there 
is, consequently, the liveliest emulation in the 
matter. 

When the mail-maker has tied up his letters 
they go to the poucher, who assorts them, throw- 



ing the several packages with unerring aim into 
their several divisions, arranged like large pigeon- 
holes in a semicircular form. These pigeon- 
holes slope downward toward the back, and, 
even while the poucher is throwing, the dis- 
patcher may be affixing the pouches at the back, 
opening a sliding door and emptying the mail 
into the bags, which are immediately locked and 
sent off to the wagons which take them to the 
railway-depots. 

Of the whole number — nearly a hundred and 
fifty millions of letters and packages a year at this 
time — about one half are distributed through box- 
es at the central office, about one fourth by car- 
riers, and about one fourth are sent to the stations 
in other parts of the city. Every letter received 
here is stamped at once with the hour of its ar- 
rival. All letters coming in between ten and 
eleven o'clock in the morning are stamped "11 
A. M." When the hour turns, the stamper wipes 
his stamp clean of ink, lays it away in a drawer 
and takes a new one with the next hour upon it 
and proceeds again. The greatest care is exer- 
cised to have the stamp legible. 

At the hour of departure of the carriers, the 
delivery department is full of animation ; the 
men in their uniforms pass from one assorter's 
table to another and take, each from his own 
box, all the mail deposited therein, while the im- 
passive assorter goes right on throwing mail into 



BUILDINGS. 



47 



the box for the next delivery. Then you will 
see the carriers at a long counter, which is di- 
vided by little raised partitions into compart- 
ments, each making his mail into a conveniently- 
arranged bundle. 

In the New York office the accounts of in- 
coming and outgoing letters are carefully bal- 
anced like a cash balance every evening, and not 
a man is allowed to leave the department if the 
balance is not correct. One night the men were 
kept until nearly morning looking for a letter 
that had dropped through a crack in an old 
table, and lodged in the folds of a worn-out mail- 
bag, and so got kicked into a corner during the 
search. At another time, when the office was 
at its wit's end after a night of search, it was 
found that an absent-minded man had 
carefully deposited his pen in the safe, ^ 

and put the missing package in the 
pen's place m his table diawer 

The noithern end of the Post- 
Office fronts upon the C ity Hall Paik, 
which lb identified with the eaily hi^.- 
tory and growth of New Yoik Less 
than a century ago it was looked upon 
as the " Old Fields," and the country 
residences of wealthy cituens were 
erected in and aiound the adjacent 
grounds A portion of the walls ot the 



present Hall of Records constituted, as far back 
as 1Y58, the walls of the colonial provost jail, 
and many an incident might be related of the 
dark and bloody scenes enacted on the spot. 
Within the last ten years the Park has under- 
gone much change, and, with its shrubbery, 
trees, fountains, and broad walks, it now con- 
stitutes an attractive feature of this portion of 
the metropolis. 

"Were it not that the Tombs, as the City Pris- 
on of New York is commonly called, is so un- 
fortunately located, it would be one of the most 




Court-House, Sixth Avenue and Tenth Street. 



48 



NEW -YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




U. S. Barge Office, Battery. 



striking and impressive buildings of the metrop- 
olis. It is an admirable specimen of Egyptian 
architecture, and the gloomy majesty of its as- 
pect assorts well with its character as a temple 
of woe and misery, for here have been performed 
for nearly half a century all the tragedies of justice 
which have taken place in the city. The build- 
ing is a lai-ge one, occupying the entire square 
bounded by Centre Street on the east, Elm Street 
on the west, Leonard Street on the south, and 
Franklin Street on the north, but its really grand 
proportions are greatly dwarfed by its situation, 
which is in a deep hollow, so that the top of its 
massive walls scarcely rises above the level of 
Broadway, which is about one hundred yards 
distant from the western facade. 

The site was formerly occupied by the " Col- 
lect Pond," a sheet of water connected with the 
Hudson or North River by a strip of swamp 
through which ran a little rivulet on a line with 
the present Canal Street, which derives its name 
from this circumstance. The pond was filled up 
in 1836, and the prison erected on it within two 
years. The soil, being marshy, was ill calculated 
to bear the weight of the solid structure, and, de- 
spite the fact that the foundations were laid 
deeper than was customary, some parts of the 
wall settled so much that fears were entertained 
for the safety of the entire building. It has now 
stood for over a third of a century, however, 



without any noticeable change, and is considered 
perfectly safe. The name of "Tombs" it has 
had ever since its erection, and was given to it 
in consequence of its then damp and unhealthy 
condition, and of its generally gloomy appear- 
ance. Externally the building is entirely of 
granite, and appears as one lofty story, the win- 
dows being carried from a point about two yards 
above the ground up to beneath the cornice. 
The main entrance is on Centre Street, and is 
reached by a flight of wide, dark stone steps, 
through an exceedingly lugubrious but spacious 
portico supported by four massive columns. The 
external walls on the other three sides are more or 
less broken up by projecting entrances and col- 
umns or insertions, infusing at least some degree 
of variety into the heavy monotone of the style. 
The Court of Special Sessions and a police court 
are held in the building. Internally the prison is 
rather a series of buildings than a single struct- 
ure. The cells rise in tiers one above the other, 
with a sepai'ate corridor for each row. Besides 
those awaiting trial in the Special Sessions and 
police courts, persons accused or convicted of 
the more heinous crimes are confined here until 
they have been tried before the higher courts, 
or until they depart for the State Prison, or are 
ready for the gallows, which is erected in the in- 
terior quadrangle of the prison, whenever an ex- 
ecution is to take place. The visitor experiences 



BUILDINGS. 



49 



i\ sense of relief as he hears the last echo of his 
footsteps reverberating among the gloomy pas- 
sages and resumes his walk in the sunshine. 

One of the most ornamental of the buildings 
devoted to the uses of justice is the Court-House 
at the intersection of Sixth and Greenwich Ave- 
nues and West Tenth Street, which is the seat 
of the Third District Court. The edifice is both 
picturesque and cheerful in its aspect, and would 
not be associated with its true function by the 
casual observer, if it were not for the police- 
oflBcers, who may be generally seen lounging on 
its steps or passing in and out of its doors. The 
architecture is of a composite nature, showing 
characteristics of the Byzantine and Renaissance, 
Lut tastefully harmonized. Among our minor 
public buildings, there is none more attractive 
than this, and it is to be hoped that the city will 
always be as fortunate in using its money to as 
much advantage in the erection of edifices, alike 
decorative and well fitted to its uses. 

The new United States Barge-Office, which 
is an appurtenance of the Custom-House, is lo- 
cated on the Battery, adjoining the Staten Island 



Ferry-House. It is a solid and well-built edifice, 
in the Byzantine style, and highly effective in its 
architectural features. This building, when com- 
pleted, will be used as the landing-place for pas- 
sengers from the European steamers and the 
reception of their baggage pending examination. 
The inconvenience and discomfort to which trav- 
elers have been exposed in the past will thus 
be obviated. The barge-office will also be the 
headquarters of the various boats used in the 
revenue service. The old barge-office at No. 
6 State Street has long been inadequate to the 
rapidly expanding needs of the Oustom-IIouse, 
and the convenience of this important branch 
of the Government service is much benefited 
by the new building. The different branches 
of the customs department of New York have 
been widely scattered, owing to insufficient ac- 
commodation, and public necessity will ere long 
compel the erection of an edifice by the United 
States Government, which will embrace these 
divisions as far as possible under one roof. 

Passing from the buildings devoted to gov- 
ernment uses to those belonging to corporations 




Grand Central Depot. 



50 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




Coljmb a Co lege (New bu Id ng ) 



and educational institutions, that which first sin- 
gles itself out for notice is the Grand Central De- 
pot, the terminal station of the New York Cen- 
tral, the Harlem, and the New Haven Railways. 
It is the only large railway-depot in the precincts 
of New York, with the exception of the old 
Hudson River Railroad Station on Thirtieth 
Street and Tenth Avenue, now used for suburb- 
an trains only. The exterior is imposing, and 
the immense size and regularity give it a marked 
prominence, notwithstanding the simplicity of 
the architectural features, its massive plainness 
being well suited to its purposes. Approaching 
from Fifth Avenue, the eye is first caught by 
the great towers and then by the main or west- 
ern facade. The situation of this great bead- 
quarters of the railway interest is between 
Fourth or Park Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue, 
and extends from Forty-second to Forty-fifth 
Street. 



Tlje external walls are built of red brick with 
white trimmings. The offices of the three rail- 
ways which terminate here are on the west 
and south sides, there being three stories on the 
west and five on the south, including the Man- 
sard roof and domes. The space for trains is 
covered by a glass and iron roof, having a single 
arch of a span of two hundred feet, and an 
altitude of one hundred and ten feet. The trav- 
eler, as he steps off a train on the stone platform 
and casts his eye upward, can have but one sen- 
timent, that of unmingled admiration for the skill 
which has spanned three acres with one magnifi- 
cent arched roof. The total length of the build- 
ing is six hundred and ninety-five feet, which is 
also the length of the glass roof, and its width 
two hundred and forty feet. Twelve trains, con- 
sisting of twelve cars and a locomotive each, can 
be admitted into the great car-house at once, 
standing side by side on the parallel tracks. 



BUILDINGS. 



51 











1-- I. 



'i^ ^=i^p 




As-.or Library. 



Besides the various offices, passenger waiting- 
rooms, and baggage-rooms, there are a police- 
station, a lunch-room, and a barber's shop in 
the basement. About one hundred and twenty- 
five trains arrive and depart daily, but every- 
thing is done with such thorough system that 



crowding or confusion is a thing almost un- 
known. 

The oldest and most important of the colle- 
giate institutions in ISTew York is Columbia, first 
chartered in 1754 as King's College. It now 
ranks among the very first colleges of the coun- 




Lenox Library. 



52 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



try, coining next after Yale and Harvard in rep- 
utation, wealth of endowment, and extended fa- 
cilities for scholastic training. Previous to the 
year in which it was chartered, a fund of about 
thirty-eight hundred pounds was raised in Eng- 
land, to be applied to the founding of such an 
institution, and out of that fund the first ex- 



penses of the college were met. Even after the 
granting of the charter the college had a hard 
struggle for existence, the predominance of the 
Church of England, or Episcopal, element in its 
board of governors having awakened the jeal- 
ousy of the other religious denominations. The 
Trinity Church vestry-room was used for recita- 




Normal College. 



tions for several years, and the corporation of 
that church finally set the college firmly on its 
feet by granting it a portion of the church lands. 
These lands were between what is now called 
College Place and Mercer Street, and here the 
first college building was erected. At the out- 
break of the War of the Revolution in 1776 the 
college was looked upon as a hot-bed of Toryism, 
and consequently the Committee of Public Safe- 
ty resolved on breaking it up by directing its offi- 
cers to prepare the buildings for the reception of 
troops. From this time until 1784, when the 
Legislature of the State reincorporated it under 
its present name, the college was in abeyance, 
80 to speak. The library had been scattered 
and the buildings were in ruins, so that the re- 
gents, the new governing body, had almost to 
recreate the institution. The new charter prov- 
ing defective, it was amended in 1787, so that 
the management of the college was vested in a 
self-perpetuating body of twenty-four trustees, 
and this body has existed to the present time. 



About 1850 the old buildings on College Place 
were found to be too far down town, and the 
present site, on Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets 
and Madison and Fourth Avenues, was selected. 

When the new buildings shall have been en- 
tirely constructed on the plan projected, they 
will make a noble home for a great and time- 
honored institution. There are four depart- 
ments connected with Columbia College — the 
academic, the scientific, the legal, and the medi- 
cal — the latter being better known as the College 
of Physicians and Surgeons. There are no halls 
whatever connected with or attached to the col- 
lege, the students being supposed to reside with 
their relatives or some private family. The 
corps of professors numbers about sixty, and the 
income is derived mainly from the rentals of the 
real estate granted to the college by Trinity 
Church. 

The Astor Library must be ranked as the 
largest and finest collection of books for the 
general uses of the scholar in New York, though 



BUILDINGS. 



53 



the Lenox has more rare special works. The 
huilding is located in Lafayette Place, and is a 
handsome and massive pile of brick and brown- 
stone, in the Romanesque style of architecture. 
The first endowment was by John Jacob Astor, 
some thirty years ago, to the amount of four 
hundred thousand dollars, which was supple- 
mented by his son, William B. Astor. The 
property of the library at the present time in 
building, books, and funds, amounts to more 
than one million dollars. Important improve- 
ments are now being made by the generosity of 
John Jacob Astor, the present representative of 
the family, who in 1879 deeded to the institution 
three adjacent lots, making seventy-five feet 



front by one hundred and fifty deep. On this 
has been recently erected an addition, sixty- 
five feet wide by one hundred deep, in the same 
general style as the rest of the building. The 
total effect is shown in the illustration. The 
additional library space will give accommoda- 
tion to one hundred and twenty thousand more 
volumes, a highly desirable expansion, as the 
library has for some time been seriously embar- 
rassed for room. 

The library as now constituted is divided into 
the Hall of Sciences and Hall of Histories, the lat- 
ter including everything in the way of miscella- 
neous literature. Above the main reading-rooms 
there are sixty alcoves, and the volumes now on 




St. Joseph's Home, Lafayette Place. 



the shelves very nearly approach two hundred 
thousand, which can only be used on the premises 
for reference purposes. Any respectable person 
may have access to the treasures of the institu- 
tion, and the librarian and assistants are always 
willing to assist the student by suggestions in 
the investigation of any study. Permission to 



use the alcoves for study and work may also be 
obtained, if satisfactory references are brought. 
Although some of the departments are deficient, 
the Astor library, on the whole, may be pro- 
nounced to be remarkably well equipped for the 
working needs of the scholar. The average 
yearly attendance for some years past has been 



54 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



about sixty thousand readers. Among the treas- 
ures in the library are a number of very rich 
and rare manuscripts in Greek and Latin, given 
by Mr. Astor. It has the largest manuscript 
volume known ; it is the volume of chants used 
at the coronation of the French kings for many 
years, and is superbly illuminated with vignettes 
by well - known early French artists. These 
books will be shown by the librarian on applica- 
tion. A number of black-letter works, including 
a copy of the first printed Bible, are also in the 
library, and a fair collection of Shakespeareana. 

During the past 
year the United 
States Sanitary 
Commission de- 
posited in the As- 
tor Library the 
archives of the 
commission, and, 
after a career of 
eighteen years, 
ceased to exist. 
These records of 
the most complete 
and effective work 
in relieving the 




Trinity-Parish Scliool. 



sorrows and sufferings of war whicii the world 
had up to that time seen, are a very valuable 
monument to the zeal and inteUigence of the 
American people, and form an important part 
of the unwritten history of the great civil war. 

The only rival to the Astor, the Lenox Library, 
is opposite the east side of Central Park, in Fifth 
Avenue, between Seventieth and Seventy-first 
Streets. This gift to New York was the culmi- 
nation of a long series of benefactions which the 
city owes to the late James Lenox, one of its 
wealtbiest citizens, and most indefatigable col- 
lectors of literary and art treasures. The present 
building was first opened to visitors in 1877, and 
the entire cost of construction and furnishing 
amounted to more than a million dollars. 'In 
addition to this there is a permanent fund of 
nearly a quarter of a million dollars. 

The building has a frontage of one hundred 
and ninety-two feet and a depth of one hundred 
and fourteen feet. The arrangement is a cen- 
ter and two wings, facing west on the avenue. 
The center has a fagade of ninety-two feet, 
which stands back forty-two feet from the front 
of the wings, thus making a courtyard, which is 
inclosed by a massive iron railing. The public 
entrance is through this courtyard. The ensem- 
hle of the building is solid and striking, the ma- 
terial being of a light-colored limestone. The 
wings are divided into two stories 
each, and arranged for library and 
=Sss^- reading-rooms, the size being one 

hundred and eight by three hundred 
feet. The south wing is devoted to 
the less valuable books, and contains 
shelf-room for one hundred thousand 
volumes, while the north wing is set 
apart for rare books, too precious for 
ordinary handling. 

The picture-gallery is in the cen- 
tral part of the second story, and con- 
tains about one hundred and fifty can- 
vases by artists principally modern, 
but including many noted names. 

Of the books in the collection a 
very large number are incunabula^ or 
specimens of the first products of the 
typographic art — first editions, Bi- 
bles, Shakespeareana, and Americana. 
There are also copies of every known 
edition of Walton's "Angler," of 
Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," and 
of nearly every known edition of 
Milton. In illustrated works, and in 
works on the fine arts generally, the 
library is also very complete. It is 



^i^jEiV.oei.^ 



BUILDINGS. 



55 



rich in rare MSS., including illustrated liibles on 
vellum and paper, belonging to the four cen- 
turies immediately preceding the Keformation. 
There are at present about thirty thousand vol- 
umes. In addition to the works of art already 
mentioned, there are many carvings, works of 
statuary, Iric-cb-lrac, and keraraics. It is a pity 
that this fine museum of literary and art wealth 
should be practically sealed to the public by 
vexatious restrictions, the condition of admis- 
sion being the procuring of a ticket from the 
superintendent on the day before. 



An institution of which New York is justly 
proud — for it is the finest of its kind in America — 
is the Normal College, which occupies a site in 
Sixty-ninth Street, between Fourtli and Lexing- 
ton Avenues. The building is spacious and mas- 
sive, and after the ecclesiastical model. The 
college building proper is about three hundred 
feet long, one hundred and twenty-five feet wide, 
facing Fourth Avenue, seventy-eight feet wide 
in the rear, and over seventy feet high. It is of 
the Gothic style, and has a lofty Victoria tower. 
The college is a part of the common-school sys- 




New York Hospital, West Fifteenth Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. 



tem, and is under the control of the Board of 
Education, the ostensible object being to prepare 
young women to teach, though but few of the 
graduates follow the profession. 

The college contains thirty recitation-rooms, 
three large lecture-rooms, a calistheniura, a li- 
brary, six retiring-rooms for instructors, presi- 
dent's ofBces, and a main hall, capable of seating 
sixteen hundred students. Each recitation-room 
contains seats for forty-eight, and each lecture- 
room for one hundred and forty-four persons. 
The entire cost of the building was three hun- 
dred and fifty thousand dollars. A model or 



training school is erected in the rear, in which 
pupil-teachers have an opportunity to supple- 
ment their theoretic studies with the practical. 
About sixteen hundred pupils are usually regis- 
tered on the college books, and the course of study 
includes Latin, physics, chemistry, German, nat- 
ural science, French, drawing, and music. It 
costs the city about one hundred thousand dol- 
lars a year to maintain this fine institution. The 
discipline is said to be very strict, and the con- 
trol over the army of young women daily assem- 
bled of the most perfect order. 

Among the many charitable institutions erect- 



56 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



ed and controlled by the Roman Catholic Church, 
St. Joseph's Home, at the corner of Lafayette 
Place and Great Jones Street, is noteworthy. 
Built by St. Joseph's Union for newsboys, boot- 
blacks, and similar waifs and strays, it is de- 
signed to furnish this large class what shall be 
at once a home, a school, and religious training. 
The building will contain extensive schoolrooms, 
a chapel, library, dormitories, refection-roo.'ns, 
etc. The dimensions are one liundred and eighty 
by eighty feet, with a height of ten stories, in- 
cluding Mansard roof and basement. This edi- 
fice is made as near fire-proof as possible, win- 



dow-casings and door-frames being the only 
wood used, and all the rest of the interior fit- 
tings being of slate and marble. The adminis- 
tration and discipline of the institution will be 
of the most thorough chai*acter. The total cost 
of St. Joseph's Home is estimated at nearly one 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 

Another religious educational school of much 
interest in its denominational connection is that 
of Trinity parish, situated on New Church Street, 
nearly opposite the rear of Trinity Church. It 
is a handsome brown-stone structure of modern 
Gothic architecture, and is exclusively devoted 




Roosevelt Hospital, Ninth Avenue and Fitty-nmth Street 



to parochial interests. The school is for boys 
only, and is maintained at an outlay of six thou- 
sand dollars annually. The scholars are taught 
all the English branches, Latin, French, German, 
and instrumental music. There are no charges 
whatever, and the attendance is about three hun- 
dred. 

New York is specially rich in hospitals, some 
being purely public institutions, and others un- 
der the control of religious denominations. Al- 
together there are thirty-nine of these beneficent 
asylums for the sick and needy, many of them 
having also special accommodations for paying 



patients. In most cases these institutions have 
attained a degree of excellence in management 
and comfort in appointments which render them 
more desirable as refuges during illness than 
almost any private house or home. This is 
especially the case with the New York, St. 
Luke's, and Roosevelt Hospitals, where by pay- 
ing a small amount the best medical attendance 
and nursing can be had. 

First among these great hospitals let us note 
the New York, which is located in Fifteenth 
Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. This 
palatial building, with its countless windows and 



BUILDINGS. 



57 



wide balconies, is a 
commanding object 
of attention. The 
material used is red 
brick with stone and 
iron facings. The 
hospital is more 
than a century old, 
and the corporation 
is immensely rich. 
The present build- 
ing was opened in 
the spring of 1876, 
and its interior is 
furnished sumptu- 
ously. Some of the 
rooms for private 
patients are let at 
forty dollars a week, 
but the charge for 
patients in the wards 
is only seven dollars 
a week, while the 
deserving poor are 
cared for gratuitous- 
ly. In one of the upper stories there is a 
rium, roofed in with glass and furnished 




Mount Sinal Hospital Sixty-sixth Street. 



sola- 
with 




The Lenox Hospita 



easy lounges, masses of flowers, shrubs, and 
aquaria. The dullest day is cheerful in this 
paradise, and the entire build- 
ing is arranged so as to form 
a snare for sunbeams. The 
dietary is liberal, the nurses 
are attentive, and the medi- 
cal staff includes well-known 
physicians and surgeons. An 
ambulance service is connect- 
ed with the institution, and all 
street accidents are brought 
in regardless of the sufferers' 
ability to pay. 

Separate apartments for 
the nurses, dining-rooms, and 
lavatories are placed at the 
end of each ward, and each 
of the six stories is connect- 
ed with the others by two 
large elevators. All the cook- 
ing and laundry-work is done 
at the top of the building, 
from the rest of which all 
disagreeable odors are thus 
excluded. 

Another admirable insti- 
tution of this kind is the 
Roosevelt Hospital, endowed 
by the late James Roosevelt, 
situated at the corner of Fifty- 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



ninth Street and 
Ninth Avenue. The 
edifice is built on the 
pavilion plan, and the 
style of architecture 
is the modern secular 
Gothic. There are 
accommodations for 
one hundred and 
eighty patients, and 
many of the beds are 
owned by private in- 
dividuals, this privi- 
lege being purchased 
for three thousand 
dollars, and carrying 
with it the right to 
send one patient at a 
time to the hospital. 
The splendid accom- 
modations of this 
hospital are surpassed 
by none in the city. 

The Mount Sinai 
Hospital, which is 
under the control of 
the Hebrew denomi- 
nation, is in Lexington Avenue, between Sixty- 
sixth and Sixty-seventh Streets. The buildings 
are of the Elizabethan style of architecture, and 
are faced with brick and marble trimmings. It 








Booth's Theatre, corner of Twenty-third Street and Sixth Avenue 



Masonic Tennpie, on Twenty-third Street and Sixth Avenue. 



accommodates one hundred and sixty patients. 
It is very complete, and embodies all the im- 
provements of modern art in its interior ar- 
rangements for the comfort of patients. 

Prominent among 
^ public and private edi- 

fices, which rise in tow- 
ers, domes, and stately 
proportions, may be ob- 
served the imposing fa- 
cade of another noble 
hospital charity, the 
Lenox Hospital, endowed 
by the will of the late 
James Lenox. It consists 
of a central building and 
two extensive wings of a 
corresponding character, 
one of wiiich is partly 
shown in the illustration, 
and is situated in Seven- 
tieth Street. The hospi- 
tal has also very exten- 
sive and complete accom- 
modations, and ranks 
among the most impor- 
tant of the numerous 
benefactions of its found- 
er. These are but a few 



BUILDINGS. 



59 



of the charitable institu- 
tions for the sick m New 
York, free admission and 
attendance being in all 
cases given to the poor, 
though such as are able 
to pay are expected to 
do so according to their 
means and the luxury 
of the surroundings fur- 
nished. In all essential 
ways, however, the care 
of the pauper is just as 
efficient as that of the 
wealthiest patient. 

One of the finest 
buildings in New York 
is the Masonic Temple, 
at the northeast corner 
of Sixth Avenue and 
Twenty -third Street. Its 
material is granite, and 
it displays a breadth of 
treatment in its various 
parts, a severe and clas- 
sical style in its ornamentation, which strongly 
commends it to all lovers of good taste in archi- 




The Grand Opera-House, corner of Twenty-third Street and Eighth Avenue. 



tecture. The main entrance, in Twenty-third 
Street, is through a Doric portico of coupled 




Seventh Regiment Armory. 



60 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



Doric columns. The first story is devoted to 
business purposes. The next story is treated in 
the Ionic style, and devoted to the use of the 
Grand Lodge and its officials. "When this body 
is not in session, however, the grand hall is rent- 
ed for lectures and concerts. The third and 
fourth stories are occupied exclusively by lodge 
and chapter rooms. The Mansard story is used 
by the Knight Templars, and is the most com- 
plete coramandery, in all its arrangements, in 



existence. It may be of interest to state that 
the first subscription toward the erection of the 
building was made by the great tragedian, Ed- 
win Forrest, and that the fund in a few years 
amounted to more than the needed sum. The 
outlay of money reached more than a million 
dollars. The net rental is devoted entirely to 
the support of the widows and orphans of Ma- 
sons. 

On the same side of Sixth Avenue, and im- 




Union League Club. 



mediately opposite the Masonic Temple, is the 
most notable of the structures in New York de- 
voted to the drama, the splendid theatre built by 
Edwin Booth, eleven years ago, as a home for 
tragedy. It is a truly noble edifice, of Concord 
granite, in the style of the Renaissance. The 
dimensions are one hundred and forty-nine feet 
in length and ninety feet in height, including 
a Mansard roof of twenty-fouj- feet. The audi- 



torium seats about two thousand people, and is 
one of the most beautiful in its lines and decora- 
tion in the world. It has three galleries, and, in 
spite of some unfortunate changes in its interior 
arrangements made by Mr. Dion Boucicault, still 
remains the most attractive of the New York 
theatres. It is one of the very few theatres 
where every part of the stage can be easily seen 
from every seat in the house. 



BUILDINGS. 



61 



Mr. Booth filled his high ambition of giving 
the finest performances of tragedy which could 
be put on the stage in respect of acting, stage 
setting, and general surroundings, for a few years, 
but at such ultimate loss to himself that he was 
filially obliged to yield up possession of his the- 
atre, a catastrophe precipitated by the load of 
debt which had been incurred in completing the 
very costly structure. During the Booth regime 



the Shakespearean tragedies were produced with 
a splendor which made the theatre the talk of 
the country, and could only be compared with 
that notable revival by Charles Kean in Lon- 
don, a quarter of a century since, considered by 
the English critics as one of the landmarks in 
tlie history of the modern English stage. After 
its failure in Booth's hands, the property was 
sold, and since that time has been leased by a 




The Victoria.' 



succession of managers, who have presented 
melodrama, pantomime, spectacles, comedy, etc. 
One interesting feature of this theatre is the 
facility of exit, possible in case of fire or other 
exigency. Seven doors on the Twenty-third 
Street side, leading directly from the auditori- 
um, can be thrown open at once, and the theatre 
be emptied in less than two minutes. 

Two squares westward from Booth's Theatre, 



in Twenty-third Street, stands another fine tem- 
ple of amusement, the Grand Opera-House, at 
the corner of Eighth Avenue. This is a massive 
edifice of white marble, erected by the Western 
speculator. Pike, more than a dozen years since. 
It has a front of one hundred and thirteen feet 
on Eighth Avenue, and ninety-eight feet on 
Twenty-tiiird Street. The theatre proper is a 
rear building, the approach to which is through 



62 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 







'The Floience. 



a spacious vestibule from each street. Failing 
as a theatre from the very start, it was purchased 
by James Fisk and Jay Gould, and the upper 
stories occupied by the Erie Railway offices until 
after the death of Fisk. A significant fact in 
the history of this place of amusement, and one 
well worth noticing, is that, after having been a 
permanent failure at high prices, it was opened 
by managers who were shrewd enough to see 
the immense clientage which New York afforded 
for good performances at moderate rates. Since 
that time the Grand Opera-House has been a 
successful institution, and has given the public a 



class of entertainments fully up to the general 
average of the dramatic art, but at popular 
prices. 

The most noticeable building of its kind in 
New York is the new armory built for the Sev- 
enth Regiment, occupying a complete block, be- 
tween Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh Streets, and 
Fourth and Lexington Avenues, covering a site 
two hundred feet by four hundred and five. 
Facing Fourth Avenue is the administration 
building, which occupies the whole frontage, 
and leaves the remaining two hundred by three 
hundred feet for a drill-room. There are ten 



BUILDINGS. 



63 



company drill-rooms, a board of officers' room, 
a veterans' room, a reading-room, a reception- 
room, a field and staff room, a gymnasium, and 
six squad drill-rooms. The material is Philadel- 
phia brick, with granite trimmings, and the cost 
of it was more than three hundred thousand dol- 
lars. The interior was decorated, fitted, and 
furnished at the expense of the regiment and the 
contributions of the public, and the armory may 
justly be called a magnificent club-house, as well 
as the most complete hall of military exercise in 
the country. 

Among the splendid buildings recently erected 
in New York, the new home of the Union League 
Club, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty- 
ninth Street, is one of the most noticeable. The 
architecture is composite, various styles being 
harmonized to make a very picturesque exterior. 
It was built and decorated at au expense of about 
four hundred thousand dollars. The building 
was expressly designed for the requirements of 
a club-house, and is probably the most complete 
structure of the kind in America. On the first 
floor it contains a large and well-appointed read- 
ing and conversation room, billiard-room, and 
cafe. On the second floor, extending tlie length 



of the Fifth Avenue front, is the library, a beau- 
tiful and richly decorated room, containing a col- 
lection of about three thousand volumes. An 
admirable arrangement of the bookcases furnishes 
many a cozy nook for the quiet reader. The 
eastern half of the second floor is devoted to the 
art-gallery and general meeting-room of the club. 
The dining-room, in many respects the most 
notable apartment in the building, is heavily pan- 
eled with oak, and the high, vaulted ceiling is 
decorated from designs by Mr. John La Farge, of 
Boston. The general decoration of the halls, 
gallery, meeting-room, private dining-room, and 
other parts of the house, is executed from designs 
by Louis Tiffany, of New York, and Franklin 
Smith, of Boston. 

In Twenty - seventh Street, extending from 
Fifth Avenue to Broadway, is the fine structure 
formerly known as the Stevens House, but now 
as the Victoria Hotel. It was built by the late 
Mr. Paran Stevens, the' well-known hotel-keeper, 
as a model example of an apartment -house, 
where wealthy families might enjoy all the 
pleasures and comforts of housekeeping with a 
minimum of its vexations. It has recently been 
transformed into an hotel, though it appears to 











' ■fjf 



/•h,-;i'?^' 



^rfji 



^-v^i^'i- 



i ^' 







- T •►. K' 



'1 T ^ ^ ;.^ 

J 







Park Avenue Hote 



64 



NEW YOEK ILLUSTRATED. 



have been highly successful in its adaptation to 
the original purpose. 

Perhaps the finest specimen of the palatial 
apartment-house now to be seen in New York 
is the Florence, a superb edifice in Eighteenth 
Street, at the northeast corner of Fourth Ave- 
nue. The rents of suites in this building are 
very high, and are only within the reach of the 
wealthy. For sumptuousness and completeness 
of appointments, the Florence is a model, as the 
most lavish expenditure of money was united 
with all the results of skill and experience in its 
building. 

Another noble edifice may be seen at the 
corner of Park Avenue and Thirty-third Street, 




Western Union Company's Telegraph-Building. 



built by the late A. T. Stewart, and opened with 
great eclat in the spring of 1 878, as a Woman's 
Hotel. It is an iron structure of immense size 
and profuse ornamentation, and designed to be 
fire-proof. This quondam charity proposed to 
furnish a home for the better class of working- 
women at rates within their means, but the 
experiment was found to be practically a failure, 
whether the fault was inherent in the design it- 
self or in the practical management, and after 
a few montlis of trial it was opened as an hotel 
of the established pattern, under the name of the 
Park Avenue Hotel. 

Returning again to down-town New York, 
let us take a brief glance at several remarkable 
buildings previously overlooked. At 
the corner of Dey Street and Broad- 
way, the Western Union Telegraph 
Company have erected a noble edifice 
for their ofiices. It is eight stories 
high, and is built of pressed red brick, 
granite, and marble. Above the roof, 
which is higher than its neighbors, 
there is a clock-tower, and from near- 
ly every window threads of fine wire 
issue, connecting every important cen- 
ter of population, festoon- 
ing every great post-road, 
marking the black track of 
every railway, and, in fact, 
literally blending town, 
city, country, ocean, and 
river. Could we see the 
inside of the operating- 
room, our pulses would 
beat a stroke faster in 
sympathy with 
the activity of 
its denizens. 

"A hundred 
keys and sound- 
ers," a writer 
has said, " are 
clicking at 
once, making a 
noise like a di- 
minutive cot- 
ton-mill. The 
floor is filled 
with ranges of 
tables, at which 
the operators 
are seated, sep- 
arated from 
each other by 
glass screens. 



BUILDINGS. 



65 



Against one wall is the switch-board, the most 
conspicuous object in the room. Without any 
actual resembhrnce, it recalls to the imaginations 
of many of the visitors the thought of a great 
organ, its ranges of slender wires behind the 
screen suggesting the trackers and pipes and the 
innumerable switches representing the keys and 
stops. Boys are passing to and fro with papers, 
and messages are being 
sent and received from al- 
most every table in tbe 
room. The switch-board 
is the central ganglion of 
the whole system. Every 
current passes through this 
apparatus. The manager, 
standing here, can, by in- 
serting a brass wedge m 
the course of any curient, 
hear what message is pass- 
ing. He has thus the means 
of inspecting and listenmg ^(li 



marks the place. The old drab building of the 
"Tribune," for a long time one of the landmarks 
of journalism, has been supplanted by a new 
structure, finished in its present state about 
four years ago, but still incomplete so far as 
affects the whole plan. This new structure is 
one of the largest and handsomest newspaper 
offices in the world. Its style is composite, 
and it is constructed of 
red pressed brick, granite, 
marble, and iron. It is 
one story higher than the 
Western Union Telegraph 
Office, and is the highest 
building on Manhattan Isl- 
and. Above the nine sto- 
ries there is a lofty clock- 
tower, visible from all 
points around the city, 
than which the " Tribune 
Association " could not 
have erected a more suit- 




The "Tribune" and "Times" Buildings, Printing-House Square. 



to all that is going on over all the wires connected 
with the office." 

Passing the City Hall Park we enter what is 
known as Printing-House Square, from the fact 
that the principal newspaper buildings of New 
York, including the " Times," "Tribune," "Sun," 
"World," and " Staats-Zeitung," are there lo- 
cated. A bronze statue of Benjamin Frank- 
lin, erected under the auspices of Captain Ben- 
jamin De Groot in 1871, also appropriately 



able monument to the advancing power of jour- 
nalism, 

A few squares up Broadway we reach the 
imposing building of the New York Life Insur- 
ance Company at the corner of Leonard Street, 
one of the finest ever erected by private enter- 
prise in America. It is of pure white marble, 
of the Ionic order of architecture, the design 
having been suggested by the temple of Erec- 
theus at Athens. The exterior is a model of 



66 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




New York Life-lnturance Building. 



architectnral taste, and the ofBces within are 
remarkable for beauty and convenience. The 
appointments of the interior are very handsome 
and tasteful. The company is one of the oldest 



in the country. We give here also a view of the 
establishment of A. T. Stewart & Co., in Broad- 
way, between Ninth and Tenth Streets, proba- 
bly the most extensive trade palace in the world. 




A. I . Stewart & Co. s, Broadway, from Ninth to Tenth Street. 



CHURCHES. 



67 



CHUECHES 



rr^HE ecclesiastical edificew of New York are 
-L worthy of the greatness of the city in num- 
ber, size, and architectural beauty. The principal 
denominations seem to have vied with each other 
in erecting noble churches, and in no direction 
have the wealth and public spirit of the citizens 

of the metropo- 
lis sliown them- 
selves more effi- 
ciently. First 
among the tem- 
ples of religion 
which are spe- 
cially noticeable 
mast be men- 
tioned Trinity, 
the principal 
church of Trin- 




ity Parish, a corporation closely woven with the 
history of New York, and remarkable for the 
extent of its charities, and the important part it 
plays in the denominational interest of the Prot- 

I estant Episcopal Church of America. 

j Standing at the head of Wall Street in Broad- 
way, it is certainly one of the uiost cathedral- 
like and elegant structures in the country. Its 
position, right in the thick of the business traf- 
fic, which beats against its very walls and rever- 
berates with a roar like that of the ocean-surf, 
gives the location a peculiar interest and suo-- 
gestiveness; and when the mellow chimes rin°g 
out their rich music over the struggle of the 
worldly battle below, the reflective bystander 
can hardly help a rash of strange thoughts. 
Before describing the church, let us briefly 
glance at the history of the church organiza- 



Trinity Church ard Martyrs' Monument 



6S 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



tion, which is the oldest and richest in the United 
States. 

The land on which Trinity Ohnrch now stands 
was granted by the English Government in 1697, 
being in the fifth year of the reign of William 
and Mary, the location being fixed as "in or near 
to a street without the North Gate of the city, 
commonly called Broadway." Eight years later, 
in 1705, the entire tract between Vesey and Chris- 
topher Streets along the North River, known as 
"Queen Anne's Farm," was 
presented to the church from 
the same source. A large por- 
tion of this magnificent en- 
dowment is still controlled by 
the organization, but for many 
years parts of it were be- 
stowed with a liberal hand on 
all sorts of institutions that 
could present a plausible claim 
for assistance. The landed 
propc'ty of T'"'nity i« pnpn- 
lailv '^ujjposcd to be something 
enoimou-^, and so it api)eais 
when figuied out at building- 
lot pi ices "When estimated, 
howevci, bj the income de- 
ii\ed tiom it, the totil is not 
so "sen staithiij;, hcin^ oiih 
about 




St. Paul's Chapel — View from Graveyard. 



per annum. This amount goes to the mainte- 
nance of the jiarish church and six chapels, and 
a multitude of charities connected with them, 
and to keeping alive about a dozen other churches 
in the poorer quarters in the city. The first 
church was completed in 1(197, and stood un- 
changed for forty years, when it was almost re- 
built. At the outbreak of the Revolution it was 
closed for a time, owing to the persistence of the 
clergy in reading tlie prayers for the King of 
England. When the British army had estab- 
lished itself again firmly in the city, the doors 
were again opened, but after a few days it was 
destroyed in the great fire of 1776, which con- 
sumed four hundred and ninety-tiiree houses. 
It was not rebuilt until twelve years had elajffeed, 
the congregation worshiping in tlie mean time 
in St. Paul's Chapel. The structure then erected 
stood imtil 1839, when it was pronounced unsafe, 
and pulled down to make way for the present 

one, which was 
finished in 1846. 

This is still 
one of the hand- 
somest specimens 
of Gothic church 
architecture in 
the city, and its 
right to rank as 
the most conspic- 
uous structure of 
the lower part of 
the city has not 
yet been taken 
away by the 
many stately pub- 
lic and corporate 
buildings that 
have been reared 
in the neighbor- 
hood since its 
dedication. Look- 
ing up from Wall 
Street we see its 
steeple rising to a 
height of two 
hundred and 
eighty-four feet, 
conveying an im- 
pression of size 
which buildings 
of greater dimen- 
sions but less for- 
tunately situated 
do not give. The 
material used — a 



CHUECHES. 



69 



brown sandstone — also helps to increase the gen- 
eral effect, offering as it does a decided contrast to 
the marble and granite of this financial quarter, on 
the ears of whose denizens the famous church 
chimes break with refreshing sweetness. The 
doors are generally open in the daytime, and 
nowhere else probably can a more striking 
change of surroundings be produced in a few 
seconds than by walking during business hours 
from the mercenary uproar of the Stock Ex- 
change, only a few yards distant, through these 
doors. The stillness is only broken by the 
hushed and apparently distant rumbling of the 
incessant traffic in Broadway and the chirrup- 
ing of the English sparrows, dwellers of the trees 
in the churchyard. The gray tint of the groined 
roof and its supporting rows of carved 
Gothic columns is mellowed by the subdued 
daylight, which is warmed and toned in its 
passage through the richly stained windows, 
while the altar and reredos rise with their 
picturesque alternations of color wherein 
red and white predominate, and form an 
artistic ensemble well worthy of contempla- 
tion. 

This altar and reredos were built to the 
memory of the late William B. Astor by his 
two sons, the reredos occupying nearly the 
whole width of the chancel, and being car- 
ried up some twenty feet from the floor 
The altar is eleven feet long, and is con- 
structed of pure white statuary marble, with 
shafts of Lisbon red marble supporting capi- 
tals carved in natural foliage, dividing the 



front and side into panels. In the central panel, 
which is carved with passion-flowers, is a Maltese 
cross in mosaic, set with cameos ; a head of Christ, 
and the symbols of the Evangelists. Two kneeling 
angels flank it. The other panels are carved with 
ears of wheat, also in mosaic. The white-marble 
slab is set on a cornice composed of grape-vines, 
and is inlaid with five crosses of red marble. 
The super-altar is of red Lisbon marble with the 
words " Holy, Holy, Holy " in mosaics on its face, 
and its shelf is continued on each side the whole 
length of the reredos for the reception of flowers 
at festivals. The design of the reredos is perpen- 
dicular Gothic, and the material is Caen-stone 
elaborately carved after natural foliage. In the 
lower portion, on each side of the altar, are three 





Grace Church, corner of Broadway and Tenth Street. 



70 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



square panels filled with colored mosaics in geo- 
metrical patterns; and above the line of the 
super-altar are seven panels of vi^hite marble, 
sculptured in alto-rilievo, representing incidents 
in the life of Christ immediately preceding and 
subsequent to the last supper. The reredos is 
divided into three bays by buttresses with vari- 
ous religious representations in them, including 
statuettes of the twelve apostles. Both the altar 
and the reredos are exceedingly beautiful, and 
add much to the interest of grand old Trinity, 
which has always been an attraction to visitors. 

A variety of charities are connected with the 

church, including the Trinity Infirmary for the 

sick poor of the parish ; five beds at St. Luke's 

Hospital; a burial-place for the poor, and a 

burial-place for the cler- 

There are also five 

scholarships in Trinity 

College, Haitfoid, the 




St. Augustine Chapel, East Houston Street. 



holders of which are relieved from all teiTu 
bills, fees, and charges during their college 
course. 

In the ancient churchyard are to be seen 
many memorials of interest. Here reposes the 
body of Alexander Hamilton, slain by Burr in 
the celebrated duel; and here, close at hand, is 
the tomb of Captain Lawrence, whose dying 
words, as he lay on the bloody deck of the Ches- 
apeake, "Don't give up the ship! " are familiar 
to every American schoolboy. There is also a 
beautiful brown-stone monument, built by the 
Trinity Corporation, in memory of "Patriotic 
Americans who died during the Revolution in 
British prisons." This was done at a time when 
it was proposed to extend Pine Street along'the 
line on which it now stands, and has generally 
been regarded as a diplomatic move to prevent 
the desecration of the old churchyard. No one 
should visit the church without inspecting the 
graveyard, for here are to be seen many vener- 
able moss-covered stones, with their ancient in- 
scriptions, some of them very quaint and curi- 
ous, the connecting links between the 
living and the dead. 

The chapels of Trinity, most of 
them fine churches in themselves, are 
St. Paul's, St. John's, Trinity Chapel, 
St. Chrysostom's, St. Augustine's, and 
St. Cornelius's, the last being on Gov- 
ernor's Island in the harbor, and de- 
voted to the use of the militai'v chapel. 
Most of the churches of the parish are 
free, or nearly so, the exception being 
pews, which belong to old families, and 
have been held for generations. 

St. Paul's is as well known to the 
New-Yorker as the parent edifice. It 
was the third church built in the city, 
the first being Trinity, the second St. 
George's, which stood at the corner of 
Beekman and Cliff" Streets, and was 
also built by the Trinity Corporation, 
though the present St. George's in 
Rutherford Place is an independent 
organization. 

The cornerstone of St. Paul's was 
laid in 1764, and it was finished two 
years later. When this church was 
built, the frontage toward the North 
River was regarded as superior to that 
on Broadway. So the rear of the edi- 
fice now faces the great artery of New 
York life and traffic. The position of 
the church is between Fulton and 
Vesey Streets, and the casual spectator 




St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fifth Avenue. 



^72 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



is for a time perplexed as he notices the tower 
on the rear of the church, and the massive porcli 
and pillars denoting the main entrance, acces- 
sible only through the churchyard on the side. 
Perhaps this irregularity adds to the sense of 
antiquity and strangeness which one inevitably 
feels in looking through the iron fence into the 

solemn old grave- 
yard, with its mol- 
dy and time-eaten 
tombs. 

St. Paul's, as it 
now stands, is the 
oldest church edi- 
fice in the city, the 
original Trinity 
Church having 
been destroyed af- 
ter its erection, and 
the yard around it 
adds to its venera- 
ble associations. In 
the rear wall fac- 
ing Broadway is a 
memorial tablet to 
General Richard 
Montgomery, who 
fell in battle in the 




Reformed Dutch Church, Fifth Avenue and Forty-fifth Street, 



ill-fated Quebec expedition during the Revo- 
lutionary War ; while in the churchyard are 
monuments to Thomas Addis Emmet, the Irish 
patriot, George Frederick Cooke, the celebrated 
English actor, and others. The monument to 
Cooke was built at the expense of the great 
Edmund Kean, when that actor, who had an 
imbounded admiration of Cooke, was in this 
country ; and it was afterward successively re- 
stored by diaries Kean and Edward Sothern, the 
well-known comedian who recently died. This 
most quaint and interesting spot, with its ancient 
tombs bearing names of the foremost old New 
York faniilies, is well worth a visit by those who 
have any antiquarian sympathies, or who would 
seclude themselves for a short time in a place 
only a few feet from the fevered life of the stree^ 
and bury themselves in the silent recollections of 
the past. It is interesting to note that many old 
families residing far up-town still, by force of 
long association, attend service at this ancient 
shrine. 

St. Augustine's Chapel, another of the edifices 
connected with Trinity Parish, is in Houston 
Street, just east of the Bowery. It was fin- 
ished in 1877, and is one of the most complete 
and pretty little churches in New York. It is 
built of brown-stone, in the Gothic style, and 
contains schoolrooms as w^ell as a chapel. The 
steeple bears at its summit a crystal cross, which 
on Sunday and feast-day nights is illumined by 
gus-jets placed within it, so that it is seen shining 
out clearly against the sky for some distance 
away. The interior is of the Queen Anne style, 
and IS well worth a visit as the best specimen of 
the kind m New Y^ork. The entrance from the 
stieet IS through a broad archway, with orna- 
mental iron gates opening into a spacious pas- 
sage-way, with an encaus- 
tic-tile pavement and tim- 
bered ceiling. The walls 
are built of neutral-tinted 
brick, with bands of terra- 
cotta tiles underneath the 
brackets, carrying the ash 
beams of the paneled ceil- 
ing. A low round arch at 
the end, with glass doors, 
forms the entrance to the 
chapel vestibule. The 
chapel is a mass of rich 
color, caused by the com- 
bination of mahogany raf- 
ters, ornamental walls and 
ceilings, polished brass gas- 
fixtures, butternut-wood 



-m 
^=^ 



CHURCHES. 



73 



pews, etc.; and the effect 
is of the most pleasing 
kind. The ground occu- 
pied, by the entire build- 
ing, of which the chapel 
occupies the rear only, 
is eighty -six feet wide 
in front and one hundred 
and fifty in the rear, with 
a depth of two hundred 
and eighty feet. The 
schools and mission- 
rooms are also hand- 
somely furnished, and 
worthy of a visit. The 
surrounding district is 
very poor, and this beau- 
tiful chapel is the only 
Episcopal place of wor- 
ship for quite a distance, 
thus filling a most im- 
portant religious func- 
tion in this portion of 
the city. Perhaps the 
greatest value of Trinity 
Parish as an organiza- 
tion is this genuine ser- 
vice for the wants of the 
poor. 

Grace Church, at the 
corner of Tenth Street 
and Broadway, is, after 
Trinity, the richest par- 
ish in New York, and, 
as may be fancied, is one 
of the most fashionable 
places of worship. 
It has been the scene 
of more aristocratic 
weddings and funer- 
als than any other 
place of worship. 
The bridal parties 
that the celebrated 
sexton, Brown, who 

died about a year ago, ushered into its sacred 
precincts during his long career, would cover 
a catalogue of the most distinguished family 
names in New York. The present structure was 
erected in 1845, and is one of the finest churches 
in the city, the material being of white gran- 
ite, and the style a chaste but yet ornamental 
Gothic. Its position is probably the best in the 
city, considered from an architectural point of 
view, standing as it does just where Broadway 
leaves its direct northern course and takes a sud- 




Church, corner of Lexington Avenue and Sixty-third Street. 



den turn to the northwest, so that the porch and 
the steeple completely close the view from the 
south. The parsonage of the church is similar in 
design, adjoins the church-building on the north, 
and stands back from the busy street. Adjoining 
the church on the soutli stands a small addition, 
in design and material like the church, which is 
used for daily services, and is called the chantry. 
The funds necessary for its erection were fur- 
nished by Miss Catherine Wolff. A new build- 
ing, connecting the church with the rectory, was 



74 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




Synagogue, Lexington Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street. 



erected in 1880, and is used as a study, vestry- 
rooin, etc. 

It is not, however, in the exterior, attractive 
as this may be, that the visitor to New York 
will find the most pleasure. There is a positive 
aesthetic pleasure to be derived from tlie simple 
and yet luxurious and rich interior of the build- 
ing, which is flooded on fine days with the light 
filtered through the stained-glass windows. The 
music is among the very best in the city, as the 
choir is made up of distinguished vocalists, and 
there are two organs, connected by electricity, 
which the organist can use together. The rector, 



Rev. Dr. Potter, is one of the 
most eloquent and effective 
preachers in New York. On 
a fine Sunday morning one 
may see perhaps a more splen- 
did parade of the wealth and 
fashion of the city than is 
gathered within the walls of 
any other church. 

The finest and most im- 
posing church-building, not 
only in New York, but in the 
New World, is the new St. 
Patrick's Cathedral, which, al- 
though the spires are yet un- 
finished, is a magnificent ^ec- 
imen of Gothic architecture. 
It occupies the most elevated 
site in Fifth Avenue, extend- 
ing the entire front of the 
block on the east side, be- 
tween Fiftieth and Fifty-first 
Streets, and running back to 
Madison Avenue. When the 
Chapel of Our Lady, which 
is included in the design, is 
completed, the building will 
cover the whole square. 

This grand Roman Cath- 
olic Cathedral has now been 
building for twenty-three 
years, and it will probably 
not be fully finished in all 
the details of its design for 
several years to come. It 
was projected by Archbishop 
Hughes, in 1850, and the plans 
were soon afterward drawn 
by James Ren wick. The cor- 
ner-stone was laid in the pres- 
ence of a hundred thousand 
people, on August 15, 1858. 
At that time very few of the 
fine residences which now line Fifth Avenue for 
miles above the cathedral had been built, and 
there was no house to be seen from Fifth to 
Sixth Avenue. The architecture of the cathe- 
dral is of the decorated or geometric style that 
prevailed in Europe in the thirteenth century, 
of which the Cathedrals of Rheims, Cologne, and 
Amiens on the Continent, and the naves of York 
Minster, Exeter, and Westminster, are fine ex- 
ponents. Tlie ground-plan is in the form of a 
Latin cross, and the dimensions are: interior 
length, three hundred and six feet; breadth of 
nave and choir, niuety-six feet, without the 



CHURCHES. 



75 



chapels, and one hundred and twenty feet with 
the chapels ; length of the transept, one hundred 
and forty feet; height, one hundred and eight 
feet; height of side-aisles, fifty-four feet. The 
Fifth Avenue front consists of a central gable, one 
hundred and tifty-six feet in height, with towers 
and spires each three hundred and thirty feet in 
height ; but at present the towers reach only to 
the roof. The design of the grand portal also 
contemplates the statues of the twelve apostles 
to be placed within it, but this has not yet been 
done. The building is of white marble, with a 
base-course of granite. The interior of the ca- 
thedral is as fine as its exterior. The massive 
columns which support the roof are of white 
stone, thirty-five feet in height, and clustered, 
having a combined diameter of five feet. The 
ceiling is groined, with richly-molded ribs and 
foliage-bosses. The springing line of the ceiling 
is seventy-seven feet from the floor. The organ- 
gallery, in the nave between the towers, is forty- 
six feet wide and twenty-eight feet long, and is 
built of ash, with richly-molded front and ceiling. 
A temporary organ has been placed in this gal- 
lery, and a smaller one permanently built in the 
sanctuary. The high-altar is forty feet high, and 
the table was constructed in Italy of the purest 
marble, and inlaid with semi-precious stones. 
The bas-reliefs on the panels have for their sub- 
jects the Divine Passion. The tabernacle over 
the altar is of white marble, decorated with Ro- 
man mosaics and precious stones, and with a door 
of gilt bronze. The altar of the Blessed Virgin 
is at the eastern end of the north side-aisle of the 
sanctuary, and is of carved French walnut. The 
sacristy is placed in the east of the south aisle of 
the sanctuary, and St. Joseph's altar, of bronze 
and mosaic, is in front of it. The altar of the 
Sacred Heart is of bronze. The four altars cost 
about one hundred thousand dollars. The Car- 
dinal's throne is on the gospel (right) side of the 
sanctuary, and is of Gothic design. The altar of 
the Holy Family is of white Tennessee marble, 
and the reredos of Caen-stone; over the altar 
hangs a painting of the Holy Family by Costaz- 
zini. There are four hundred and eight pews, 
of ash, having a seating capacity of twenty- 
six hundred, and the aisles will afford standing 
room for nearly as many more. The cathedral 
is lighted by seventy windows, thirty-seven of 
which are memorial windows. They were main- 
ly made at Chartres, France, cost about one hun- 
dred thousand dollars, and were presented by 
parishes and individuals in various parts of the 
country. The total cost of the cathedral, up to 
the present, has been a trifle over two million 



dollars, and it is estimated that at least half a 
million more will be needed to complete the 
design. The cathedral was solemnly dedicated, 
with eflFective ceremonies, on Sunday, May 25, 
1879, by Cardinal McCloskey. Services are held 
in this church every day. 




Church of the Holy Trinity, Madison Avenue, corner of 
Forty-second Street. 

A few words may be said in reference to the 
church architecture of Fifth Avenue, which is 
imposing to the spectator from its variety and 
beauty of form. In one shape or another it 
has reminiscences of every style. It is Roman- 



76 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



esqne; it is Byzantine; it is modern flamboy- 
ant; it lias some characteristics of the positive 
Renaissance ; here and there it suggests the 
Lombard-Gothic, the Itahan, or the Norman; 
and it is always interesting from its costliness 




St. Bartholomew s, Madibon Avenue. 

and massiveness. One of the specimens of 
fine church architecture in Fifth Avenue is the 
Dutch Reformed Church, at the corner of Forty- 
eighth Street. This is modernized Gothic in 
style and brown-stone in Jiuiterial ; and, if any 



fault is to be found with it, it is with the wooden 
frames to the stained-glass windows, that were 
put up in the temporizing spirit that spoils so 
much of the honest architecture of this country. 

A striking illustration of the irregular and 
picturesque style of church-building is the Jewish 
temple at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 
Sixty-third Street. The predominant element is 
the Byzantine, though this is strongly modified 
by the Gothic, the most pronounced mark of the 
latter being the great rose-window. The ten- 
dency to extreme decoration noticeable in the 
fanciful trickery of the stone- work in the upper 
portion of the church is not carried off by the 
sense of height and mass. But, in spite of this 
fault, the eff'ect of the church on the eye is highly 
agreeable — an impression not lessened when the 
visitor enters the building and takes note of the 
splendid interior decorations. 

The growth of the Jewish element in New 
York to be such an important factor of life, is 
very well illustrated in many costly and beauti- 
ful synagogues. Tliere are sixteen regular syna- 
gogues and temples, and a still larger number of 
small meeting-houses. Several of the synagogues 
are specially worthy of notice. That on the cor- 
ner of Lexington Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street 
is a fine example of the Greek Byzantine, and its 
massive proportions and strangely-shaped towers 
attract the eye with a sense of keen curiosity. 
This temple is of great size, and was for a long 
time the most important of the Jewish places of 
worship in the city of New- York. 

But a still more noble edifice is the Temple 
Emanuel, at the northeast corner of Fifth Ave- 
nue and Forty-third Street. It is regarded as the 
noblest specimen of the Saracenic architecture in 
America, and it is one of the costliest churches 
in New York. It is built of brown and yellow 
sandstone, with the roof of alternate lines of red 
and black tiles. The center of the facade on 
Fifth Avenue, containing the main entrance, is 
flanked by two minarets finely carved in open- 
work. There are five doors leading into the 
vestibule, from which the interior is reached. 
Inside the temple the eye is dazzled by a rich 
profusion of Oriental decoration and coloring. 

The Church of the Holy Trinity, at tlie cor- 
ner of Madison Avenue and Forty-second Street, 
is a richly-decorated building in the style of the 
Renaissance, one striking characteristic being 
the effect produced by party-colored stones in 
the walls and the variegated tile-roofing. The 
edifice is a large one, and the congregation, of 
which young Dr. Stephen IT. Tyng (as he is often 
called, to distinguish him from his lately deceased 



CHURCHES. 



77 



father) was for many years the rector, one of 
the most aristocratic in New York. Two blocks 
above, on the opposite side of Madison Avenue, 
the severe lines of St. Bartholomew, marked by 
its chaste and noble style and its fine Saracenic 
tower, arrest the attention. 

At the corner of Fifty-third Street and Fifth 
Avenue is St. Thomas's Church, the in- 
terior of which is very remarkable in the 
style of its ornamentation, and specially 
deserving of a visit; and at the corner of 
Fifty-fifth Street is the fine church the pas- 
tor of which is the famous and eloquent 
Dr. Hall, who ranks foremost among the 
Presbytei-ian divines of the land. The lat- 
ter church is a simple adaptation of the 
French Gothic, and the material is of 
brown-stone. The tower is the loftiest in 
the city, and the church is regarded as one 
of the finest specimens of ecclesiastical art, 
both in its exterior and interior in New 
York. The power of the preacher attracts 
great audiences every Simday. 

St. Thomas's Church is also of brown- 
stone, and its style of architecture is mixed, 
the Early English predominating. A few 
words of special description are due to 
the remarkable interior decoration of this 
church, executed under the direction of 
Mr. John La Farge, the artist. With the 
exception of Trinity Church, Boston, it is 
the only attempt of the kind yet made in 
America, worthy to be ranked with in- 
terior church decoration as seen in Eu- 
rope. This unique and beautiful work was 
prompted by the wish of Mr. Housman, a 
member of the parish, to commemorate 
the name of his mother. The form of the 
choir is seven-sided, five of which are be- 
ing decorated under Mr. La Farge's design, 
the sculptured portion of the w^ork being- 
due to Mr. A. St. Gaudens. The general 
design is a sculptured adoration of the 
cross by the angels, with paintings on each 
side representing scenes in the life of Christ 
immediately following the resurrection. 

A description of one of these pictures 
will give the reader a conception of the 
whole. The tomb is represented on the left, with 
the angel sitting on it, and the sleeping guards 
at the side, while at the right Mary Magdalene 
throws herself at the feet of the Saviour. It has 
many features of beauty and picturesqueness, the 
composition is full of dignity and repose, and the 
landscape is charming in its suggestion of early 
dawn. The sculptured portion is fully as interest- 



ing. A large cross rises directly above the bish- 
op's chair, and on either side, arranged in four 
rows, are kneeling angels, who adore the sacred 
symbol. A large crown is suspended above this 
cross, and beneath it is a row of cherubic heads. 
The whole is inclosed between two rich pilasters, 
designed and in great part executed by Mr. La 




Temple Emanuel, corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street. 



Farge himself. The sculptured work is fine in 
its spirit of joy and cheer, and suggests the 
early Italian art, though in no sense can it be 
called a slavish imitation. Mr. St. Gaudens, in 
his style and method, has returned to the model 
of the early Italian Renaissance, so inimitable in 
its commingling of intellectual penetration with 
deep religious feeling. This is specially seen in 



Y8 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



the jubilant fullness of expression with which 
the angels bow and bend before tlie symbol that 
unites heaven and earth in healthy happiness, as 
birds soaring and singing to greet the rising sun. 
This work in its entirety may be looked on as 
the pioneer of a new departure in a beautiful 
school of ecclesiastical art, and it will probably 
manifest itself more fully in the future. One 
great diflSculty in the way of such decorations 
comes from the ignorance of church com- 
mittees as to the nature of the artist's 
work and the condition under which it 
is produced. Properly there can be no 
business relations between the aitist and 
the business-man other than that the 
artist shall do his work to the best of his 
ability^ and that the busmess man shall 
pay promptly and generously when it is 
done, and leave him untiammeled 
while he is doing it. 

Let us now cross to the east side 
of New York, to the old Bowcne 
farm of Governor Stuyvesant, one of 



in his garden, stood until recently at the corner 
of Thirteenth Street and Third Avenue. On the 
site of the present St. Mark's Church, Governor 
Stuyvesant built a chapel at his own expense, 
and dedicated it to the service of God according 
to the ritual of the Reformed Dutch Church. At 
his death he was buried in the vault within the 
chapel, and over his remains was placed a slab 
which may still be seen in the eastern wall of 
St. Mark's, with the following inscrip- 
tion : " In this vault lies buried Petecs 
Stuyvesant, late Captain-General and 
Commander-in-Chief of Amsterdam, in 
New Netherlands, now called New York, 
and the Dutch West India Islands. Died 
in August, A. D. 1682, aged eighty /ears." 
Other tablets and curious monuments of 
the past are to be found in this quaint 
old building. When the first build- 
ing properly known as St. Mark's 
Church was erected, the locality, 
which is now in the heart of the 
older part of the city, was one of 




St. Thomas's Church, corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-third Street. 



the famous rulers of the New Netherlands. 
Here, the old chronicles tell us, " he enjoyed the 
repose of agricultural pursuits within the sight 
of the smoke of the city, which curled above the 
tree-tops." His house was built of small yellow 
brick, imported from Holland, and stood near 
the present St. Mark's Church, on Second Ave- 
nue nedr East Tenth Street. A tine brick build- 
ing now covers the spot. A pear-tree, imported 
from HoUand by Stuyvesant in 1647, and planted 



green fields, and for a long time " St. Mark's in 
the fields" was the recognized suburban Protes- 
tant Episcopal place of worship. St. Mark's is 
still attended by many old and aristocratic fam- 
ilies, for it .shares with Trinity and St. Paul's the 
dignity of age and historical association. 

Among the noticeable churches to which at- 
tention should be called is St. George's, situ- 
ated on the corner of East Sixteenth Street and 
Rutherford Place. This edifice is said to be 



CHURCHES. 



79 



capable of holding a larger congregation than 
any other ecclesiastical structure in the city of 
New York. It is built of solid brown-stone, 
and, with its two lofty towers looking to the 
east, and immense depth and height of wall, 
is certainly entitled to the first rank among 
the religious edifices of America. It was 
erected in 1849; but the interior was com- 
pletely destroyed by fire on the 14th of 
November, 1865. The refitting of the build- 
ing was immediately entered upon, and it is 
now one of the 

handsomest — _ 

in the coun- _l£IJr^^— _^_;^;2_^ 

try. The inte- rmzrr_::z:i"iiT" 

rior is very ^^rmr" 

striking in its , 

polychromatic 
designs, and 
the ceiling of 
the roof is a 
"thing of 
beauty " well 
worth seeing. 
The chancel is 
one of the 
handsomest in 
the city. The 
adjoining rec- 
tory and the 
chapel on Six- 
teenth Street 
are architect- 
u r a 1 1 y and 
otherwise in 
keeping with 
the noble edi- 
fice of which 
they are a part. 
Another 
quaint and 
charming 
church is that 
in Twenty- 
ninth Street 
near Fifth 
Avenue, the 
Church of the 
Transfigura- 
tion, popular- 
ly known as 

the "Little Church around the Corner," a 
name bestowed on it by a neighboring clergy- 
man, who, refusing to bury an actor from his 
own church, referred the applicant to this one. 
It is rather interesting from its old-fashioned 





^ "-- ^^ — 


— 


^^--"■^=1^— 




--- -■ 


r 


' ^.-^^ 




— TTT— 


-- -;t-=: 


^^^^ — - .- 



Presbyterian Church, Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street 



irregularity and air of seclusion, than from any 
architectural pretensions. Half hidden in a quiet 
little park of its own, it reminds one of a coun- 
try church, and this aspect in tlic heart of a 
great city strikes the imagination pleasantly. 
The church is Gothic in the form of a Latin 
Cross, and contains a number of memorial 
windows, among them being one dedicated 
to the memory of the late H. J. Montague 
the actor. Owing to the incident which 
gave the chuich its popular name, almost all 

members of 
the theatrical 
profession, 
who die in 
or near New 
York, are bur- 
ied from there. 
Such are a 
few of the 
more striking 
and character- 
istic churches 
of New York, 
a city pecul- 
iarly rich in 
such edifices, 
though the 
sister city of 
Brooklyn is a 
rival, for the 
latter place is 
well called 
" The City of 
Churches." 

As has be- 
fore been re- 
marked, the 
city is not dis- 
tinguished by a 
predominance 
of pure archi- 
tectural form 
in ecclesiasti- 
cal style. For 
instance, there 
are but two 
or three ex- 
amples of pure 
Gothic, and 
none, so far as 
we know, of pure Norman. But the somewhat 
composite character of our church architecture, 
if it offends the art-purist, is perhaps more pleas- 
ing to the general eye; and it is only just to 
state that the blending of different styles has 




80 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




St. Georges Church, co'ne, of Sixteenth Street and Rutherford Place. 



been for the most part accomplished with great 
good taste and sense of harmony. Most of the fine 
churches of New York, too, do not offend by that 
elaborate ornateness of decoration into which the 
architect is tempted, when he seeks to combine 
the elements of various styles in his design. Of 



course, the city can not claim for itself such 
magnificent creations of the builder's art as may 
be found in many of the principal European 
capitals. These Avere products of an immense 
religious and art fervor such as is not likely to 
occur again. 




Church of the Transfiguration, Twenty-ninth Street, near Fifth Avenue. 



RIVER AND WHARF SCENES. 



81 



EIVER AND WHARF SCENES. 




A TOUR around the water-front is full of 
charm ; the scenes and incidents have no 
common fascination. In its course we can muse 
away hours, dream ourselves into the tropics or 
the farthest north, and awaken to a remembrance 
of the great extent and variety of our sea- 
board commerce. A myriad of small craft, pro- 
pelled by steam and sail, flecks the stream. A 
6 



fleet of grander vessels towers almost over our 
heads on the rising tide, in their berths. The 
wealth they contain and the adventures they 
suggest invest them, as we have said, with no 
small measure of poetic interest. They are 
like a glorious army of pilgrims gathered in a 
central port from the shrines of every nation 
— gathered with peace-offerings and treasure 
after trials and victorious conquest. 

We see nothing on the New York water- 
front like the great wharves and docks which 
make the maritime accommodations of Lon- 
don and Liverpool so marvelous. The latter, 
indeed, may almost be included among the 
wonders of the world, so extensive and com- 
modious are they. It is true, indeed, tbat the 
depth of the water does not prescribe such 
radical and extensive improvements as were 
made in the two great English cities, but none 
the less true is it that there has long been felt 
a need of reconstruction. Various plans have 
been suggested and experiments made, which 



82 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



will be described further on, but they have not 
so far proved wholly satisfactory. 

The architecture of the wharves, and the 
buildings on them, may be deemed inadequate 
commercially, but its irregularity, perhaps its 
very poverty, gives it an artistic value which we 
should be sorry to miss. The ancient battalions 
of sail-lofts, ship-chandleries and stores, with 
swinging sign-boards, have more or less a nau- 
tical aspect, and will, no doubt, recall to many 
some dear old port of their youth. There may 
be those, indeed, who will regret the time when 
these weather-beaten structures are swept away, 
and supplanted by others more commodious, but 
not more interesting. 

Inadequate and unsatisfactory as are the ex- 
isting wharves, the trade they accommodate will 
astound the reader who is unversed in commer- 
cial statistics. The number of entrances of sail- 
ing-vessels engaged in foreign trade for 1880 
was 5,775, with a tonnage of 2,917,741 tons; and 
the number of entrances of steamers the same 
year was 1,820, with a tonnage of 4,604,652 tons. 
The number of clearances for the same year (for- 
eign trade) was 5,604 sailing-vessels, with a ton- 
nage of 2,951,349 tons, and 1,833 steamers, with 
a tonnage of 4,623,265 tons. Referring to the 
coastwise trade, we find entrances and clearances 
of 3,376 sailing-vessels, and of 3,018 steamers, 
with an aggregate of 4,588,654 tons. This shows 
an aggregate of 21,492 vessels, but, as each vessel 
is included both in the clearances and entrances, 
we must estimate one half of the number, or 10,- 
746 vessels, as entering and clearing New York 
Harbor in the course of the last year. The ton- 
nage of New York fell off very materially during 
the war, and since that time a large part of the 
business which was formerly done in American 
ships has been transferred to foreign bottoms, a 
drawback from which we have very recently com- 
menced to recover. In spite of this, however, 
the immense increase in trade and the demand 
for ocean-carriage has more than counterbalanced 
the difference, showing a gratifying exhibit in 
spite of the " hard times," from which commerce 
has been suffering. When the reader crosses 
one of the ferries, and views the fringe of ship- 
ping, he will have occasion for reflection and 
wonder, if he bears the above figures in mind. 

We may choose any hour for a ramble along 
the wharves, but the best is in the morning, for 
then we can see Commerce arouse from its heavy 
slumbers, and, limb by limb, unfold and apply 
itself to the great crank that grinds out the na- 
tion's destiny. It is, indeed, well worth while 
to watch the soft shades of morning breaking 



over Corlear's Hook, and bringing into clearer 
relief the entangled masts and rigging that are 
woven against the receding night-clouds; well 
worth while to watch the gradual change from 
night to morning, from a desert-like stillness to 
a fretful roar ; to watch the moonbeams driven 
from their nooks in the silent warehouses, as 
shutters are thrust aside, doors opened, and liv- 
ing streams pour through every adjacent street to 
the water-front. The river, smoothly lapping the 
piers in darkness, breaks into a surfy tumult, as it 
is beaten and crossed by paddle and oar. Each 
stone gives forth a rattle, and the inanimate as 
well as the animate unreins a restless tongue. 
Gangways are opened to the grand old clippers, 
and companies of broad-shouldered, labor-marked 
men trot from deck to wharf, with baskets and 
barrows. The night-watchmen shuffle homeward 
to breakfast, with a few others who have been 
busy during the night, loading and unloading 
ocean - steamships. Again appear the thick- 
wheeled drays, drawn by powerful horses, and 
laden with tons of valuable merchandise. From 
the masses that throng the river-street, one 
would think that the whole population of the 
city had business to do by the water-front, each 
individual actuated by a different purpose and 
destiny. The elements contend and bustle ; yet 
we see that they are systematic, and that each 
man's share of the work helps to give the big 
wheel a turn. 

In making a brief study of the extended water- 
front of New York and its varied, picturesque 
associations, let us begin at the Battery, at the 
extreme southern end of the city, and stroll as 
fancy dictates, for nowhere can the sight-seer go 
amiss if he has a quick eye and a little imagi- 
nation in finding continual food for interesting 
thought. 

As one looks down the shining bay from 
the Battery, the scene is one which impresses 
itself on the imagination beyond the possibility 
of forgetting. The crowded shipping going and 
coming, steamers being slowly drawn by pufiing 
tugs, stately ships preparing for their long voy- 
ages, fishing and oyster boats, yachts, men-of- 
war, small sail-boats, etc., make up a scene ani- 
mated in the extreme. The bright waters shin- 
ing with sunbeams seem to be fairly alive, as 
they dance along the surface of the bay ; and the 
islands in the harbor, with their glimpses of 
greenery lifting above the swift tides, add to the 
variety and attraction of the outlook. The im- 
agination conjures up visions of these outgoing 
and incoming vessels, which bind New York 
with all parts of the world, floating over tropical 



; i 



ililliili 



'r,,iiiiiii! ' Mi' 




84 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



seas, or battling with the savage 'fury of wind 
and wave thousands of miles away, until the 
l)rosaic and bustling present sinks out of sight, 
and one realizes the infinite labor, suffering, and 
patience, the tax laid on human bravery, endur- 
ance, and skill, to carry on the intricate relations 
of commerce. The Battery is always fringed 
with sight-iseers and loungers, who appear to gaze 
on the brilliant scene with constant delight; for 
nowhere in New York is there more to fill the 
eye and stimulate the fancy. 

At the Battery is Castle Garden, now used 
as an immigrant depot, where those who come 
from the Old to seek homes in the New World 



first find a resting-place, and receive their ear- 
liest impression of their new country. Castle* 
Garden is an historic spot, having been originally 
a fort and afterward a summer garden, whence it 
derives its now not very appropriate name. It 
was once used for civic and military displays and 
receptions, and it was here that Lafayette re- 
ceived the honor of a grand ball in 1824, when 
he revisited the country to which he had so gal- 
lantly given his military services. Otlier cele- 
brated men also received public receptions on 
this historic spot. It was here also that Jenny 
Lind made her first appearance under P. T. Bar- 
num's management, and sang before the most 




L n 



Landing-Steps, west of the Battery. 



brilliant and numerous audiences which ever ap- 
plauded the notes of a singer in America. 

By-and-by, as the town grew far away from 
this region, Castle Garden was given up as a 
place of resort, and converted in 1855 to the use 
of immigrants by the erection of suitable accom- 
modations. The European steamers, which bring 
these tides of living freight, land them at this 
spot, where they receive food and shelter till 
such time as they are ready to start for their 
destinations. There was a time when the Garden 
was infested with immigrant-runners, who preyed 
on the ignorant and timid strangers, for the most 
part unable to speak any English, without mercy. 
But this has now been suppressed, and the poor 



foreigner is fed, protected, sheltered, and trans- 
ported with his worldly goods to the station, 
when he departs for the land of milk and honey 
which he hopes to find. At times there are not 
less than a thousand immigrants sheltered here, 
and it is a most interesting and suggestive spec- 
tacle. 

Here one may see all manner of strange garbs 
from all parts of Europe, and hear a babel of 
polyglot sounds, as the newly-arrived aspirants 
for American citizenship with their wives and 
babies, spend a few brief days, preparing for de- 
parture. A fortnight hence they will have been 
scattered from Minnesota to Texas, from Maine 
to the Golden Gate of the Pacific, and fairly em- 



RIVER AND WHARF SCENES. 



85 




North River Flotilla 



barked on the life which is to assimilate them 
with the wonderful facts and forces of the great 
republic of the West. 

The system of caring for tlie immigrants is 
simple, but thorough and satisfactory. After 
examination of their luggage on shipboard by 
the customs officers, the immigrants are trans- 
ferred to this landing depot, where they are re- 
ceived by officers of the Commission, who enter 
in registers kept for the purpose all necessary 
particulars for their future identification. The 
names of such as have money, letters, or friends 
awaiting them, are called out, and they are put 
into immediate possession of their property, or 
committed to their friends, whose credentials 
have first been properly scrutinized. Such as 
desire can find clerks at hand to write letters for 
them in any European language, and a telegraph 
operator within the depot to forward dispatches. 
Here, also, the main trunk lines of railway have 



offices, at which the immigrant can buy tickets 
and have his luggage weighed and checked ; 
brokers are admitted (under restrictions which 
make fraud impossible) to exchange the foreign 
coin or paper of immigrants ; a restaurant sup- 
plies them with plain food at moderate prices ; a 
physician is in attendance for the sick ; a tem- 
porary hospital is ready to receive them until 
they can be conveyed to Ward's Island; and 
those in search of employment are furnished it 
at the labor bureau connected with the estab- 
lishment. Such as desire to start at once are sent 
to the railway or steamboat, while those who 
prefer to remain in the city are referred to board- 
ing-house keepers whose charges are regulated 
by, and houses kept under the supervision of, the 
Commissioners. The old scandals and abtises 
have long since disappeared imder the new 
method. 

If picturesqueness were the only thing de- 




Ferry-Boat at Niglit. 



S6 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



sirable in the water-front of a great seaport, 
that of New York would be everything needful, 
but the picturesque is oftentimes opposed to the 
convenient ; and, as one looks on the dilapidated 
old piers, narrow streets, and tumble-down rook- 
eries of warehouses, their insufficiency becomes 
plain. For many years the commercial interests 
of the city have suffered from bad wharfage. 



but there has been a beginning of better things, 
and suitable piers are now in process of erection. 

The total available water frontage of New 
York, not counting the New Jersey and Long 
Island shores, which are equally devoted to the 
accommodation of the shipping interest of the 
city, is twenty-four and three fourths miles. 

" It is evident," General McClellan wrote when 




An Ocean-Steamer in Dock. 



Engineer of the Dock Department, " that we need 
not resort to the English system of inclosed docks. 
The arrangement best suited to our wants is a 
continuous river-wall, so located as to widen the 
river-street very considerably, with ample covered 
piers projecting from it. This is the simplest, 
most convenient, and by far the most economical 
system that can be suggested. It will bring into 
play all the extraordinary natural advantages of 
the port, and will give every facility for the 



clieap and rapid handling of vessels and their 
cargoes." The plans proposed by General Mc- 
Clellan, approved by the Dock Commissioners, 
and now being carried out with certain mod- 
ifications, are as follows; 1. A permanent river- 
wall of Mton and masonry, or masonry alone, 
so far outside the existing wharf-line as to give 
a river-street two hundred and fifty feet wide 
along the North River, two hundred feet wide 
along the Ea,st River, from the southern extrem- 



RIVER AND WHARF SCENES. 



87 



ity of the city to Thirty-first Street, and one hun- 
dred and seventy-five feet wide along both streets 
above that point. 2. A series of piers projecting 
from the river-wall, of ample dimensions and 
adequate construction, which will allow an un- 
obstructed passage of the water. 3. The erec- 
tion of sheds over these piers suitable to the re- 
quirements of tlie vessels using them. The same 
distinguished engineer says : " I have no doubt 
as to the immediate neces^jity of widening the 
river -streets and building a permanent river- 
wall ; but I think it sound policy to content our- 



selves with piers of a cheap material, leaving for 
other generations richer than ours the construc- 
tion of more permanent structures." It is a fasci- 
nating thought for the lover of New York and 
its greatness to look forward to the time when 
crazy old jetties and sheds and worm-eaten 
wooden docks shall be demolished ; when firm 
granite or concrete piers, extending from a broad 
river-street belting the city in its embrace, shall 
give complete accommodation to the shipping 
and commerce of the world ; when capacious and 
well-built warehouses fronting these splendid 



mm 




An Ocean-Steamer outward buund. 



docks shall receive the products of every clime, 
tut this fruition it is to be feared is not to be 
looked for in our generation, unless some change 
is made in the system under which our city af- 
fairs are administered. 

Both day and night the New York waters 
present a most animated and pleasing sight. It 
is a characteristic and frequent thing to see in 
the North River a long line of canal boats towed 
by tug or steamer on their way from the Erie 
■Canal. These flotillas give a curious character 
to the appearance of the river, and play a very 
important part in the commerce of the port. 
One may also see a little fleet of barges towed by 



a lumbering and dilapidated steamer, which has 
survived its gala-days, when gayly decorated with 
bunting it pursued its stately track up and down 
the river laden with passengers. The vessels 
which vary the aspect of the North River front 
are highly miscellaneous in their composition. 
Survivals of those ancient crafts which, a hun- 
dred years ago, did most of the internal and coast- 
wise commerce of the port, sloops and schooners 
of antiquated cut, may still be seen crawling over 
the waters. These Rip Van Winkle vessels which 
lazily serve the local needs of many of the Hud- 
son River and New Jersey towns and villages, 
v»'ith their battered hulls and patched sails, to the 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




North River Oyster-Boats. 



artist eye are more picturesque than even the 
trim clipper, with her beautiful lines and taper- 
ing spars. They are the links between the past 
and the present, and their old-fashioned aspect 
carries one back to the times when steam was 
unknown, and the age was leisurely, easy-going, 
simple-minded, and easily contented. 

As we have said, the vessels which lie in the 
harbor are of all kinds and descriptions. Among 
these may be seen often, specially in the late 
spring, just before the cruising season begins, 
many beautiful yachts. The yacht among boats 
may be likened to the fashionable fine lady, 
polished, dainty, symmetrical, with an air of 
grace and distinction not to be mistaken. This 
airy creation of the ship-builder's adze and ham- 
mer carries with it the most delightful association 
of sea and air, the union of the highest luxury of 
civilization with the primitive delight in the rich 
heritage of the blue sky, exhilarating breezes, 
and the glancing waters. Yachting as carried on 
in New York costs a great deal of money, and it 
is as much the favorite amusement of the wealthy 
as the ownership of fine horses. Twelve yacht- 
clubs have their headquarters in or near New 
York, the most important being known as the 
New York Olub, which has a total tonnage ot 
about five thousand tons, and an estimated valua- 
tion of vessels amounting to three million dollars. 

Gliding in and out among these beautifully 
shaped crafts, with their graceful lines and taper- 



ing spars, may be seen the sturdy and democratic 
little tugs, full of compact grit and energy, which 
puflP along, towing, perhaps, several vessels twenty 
times their size, with an air of ease which aston- 
ishes one's mind, and conveys a sense of com- 
pressed power not surpassed by one's notion of 
a British bull-dog or a can of nitro-glycerine, 
though in this case it is force conservative and 
useful, not destructive. The waters of such a 
great harbor are full of surprises and contrasts 
of form and function, and the philosopher finds 
no end of food for his humor and fancy as well 
as his edification in the survey thereof. We be- 
hold the river-surface plowed by every kind of 
vessel. Squat ferry-boats, like enormous turtles, 
black with passengers; splendid steamboats, with 
tier on tier of staterooms ; capacious barges; row- 
boats, dancing along like cockle-shells ; solid and 
queer-looking dredging-machines and pile-driv- 
ers; dingy sloops and schooners — all dodge each 
other in this moving pageant of the broad 
stream, which is more like an arm of the sea 
than an ordinary river, in its suggestion to the 
mind. 

When the shadows of night settle down over 
the waters of New York, the scene is no less 
picturesque. Lights flash far and wide over the 
faintly-gleaming surface of river and bay, and 
hoarse, far-distant cries echo along the wharves 
and from ship to ship, showing the presence of life, 
quiescent, but not entirely asleep. From time to 



RIVER AND WHARF SCENES. 



89 



time the white sails of ships glide by like giant 
specters, while on the opposite shores gleam the 
street-lamps of sister cities like an army of tire- 
flies. When a heavy fog settles on the river, 
wiping out as with a sponge the distant lights, 
there is something weird and oppressive in the 
scene. Darkness shrouds the outlook, but through 
the thick, black air the shrill shrieking of the 
steam-whistles keeps up an incessent cacophony. 
Suddenly there shoots out of the gloom a great 
eyeball of light, which is speedily multiplied into 
many as the ferry-boat nears the landing. So 
great are the skill and care of the pilots of the 
ferry-boats, that collisions rarely occur even ou 
the most foggy nights, which, in view of the great 
number and constant running of these transit- 
boats, is a matter of marvel. 

It is along the wharves at night, particularly 
on very dark and foggy nights, that the river- 
thieves find their sphere of operations. The 
riches lying along tlie wharves tempt theft, and 
organized bands of these criminals ply a lucrative 
business in miscellaneous stealing of everything 
not imder the closest watch. They often, too, 
indulge in broad acts of piracy, boarding vessels, 
gagging the crew, and not unseldom committing 
murder. Some of their outrages are of the most 
audacious character, for these bands contain 
many of the most reckless and daring scoundrels 
hatched out of the rotten compost of our civili- 
zation. A special corps of river-police patrols 



the waters in a small steamer on the outlook for 
these daring ruffians, and watching with suspi- 
cious eyes all the small craft and row-boats that 
ply along the shores, for what to untrained eyes 
would be a mere pleasure-boat, might contain a 
crew of these bold pirates. The strongholds of 
these thieves shift from time to time to elude tlie 
watchful guardians of the public peace and prop- 
erty, now being in some hut on a quiet sand- 
beach down the bay, now under one of the un- 
frequented piers far up town. A spot which 
has been specially noted in police annals for the 
operations of these rascals, than whom there are 
none more bold and cunning in New York, is 
Corlear's Hook, which is at the bend of the East 
River, just below Grand Street, and opposite 
the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, Large machine-shops 
and storage warehouses make this part of the 
New York water-front almost deserted at night, 
and aflford the thieves ample chance to sally out 
and return with their booty unobserved, while 
squalid rookeries and tenements near at hand 
furnish places of convenient concealment. 

Perhaps there is no part of the water-front of 
the city more attractive than those quays and 
streets on the North River where we almost pass 
under the bowsprits of the immense ocean-steam- 
ships of the Pacific Mail Company, the Inman 
line, the White Star line, the State line, and 
others which bring us thousands of tourists and 
immigrants, and the most valuable freights. The 




The Canal-Boats, East River 



90 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



arrival or departure of one of these fine triumphs 
of marine architecture is a picturesque and ani- 
mating sight. The great ship itself, viewed as a 
study of man's scientific mastery in his combat 
with Nature, is a marvel in completeness of make 
and equipment, alike to defy the treacherous 
moods of the sea, and to subserve all the com- 
forts and luxuries of man. 

European steamers leave and arrive at the 
port of New York daily, sometimes half a dozen 
in a single day, and, in addition to these great 
ships that ply over the ocean-ferry to Europe, 



there are lines to South and Central America, the 
West Indies, the Windward Islands, to Florida, 
New Orleans, Texas, Mexico, Cuba, and various 
other domestic and foreign destinations. Among 
the European lines the Cunard has long been 
famous for its immunity from accident. The 
White Star Hue is widely known for its large, 
admirably equipped, and swift vessels; and the 
Williams & Guion line has at the head of its 
fleet the largest steamship in the world, the Ari- 
zona, with the exception of the Great Eastern. 
An ocean-steamer is a vast floating hotel, where 




Wharf-Scene. 



rich and poor find accommodations to suit their 
means and their tastes. When one of these great 
vessels, decked with flags, and crowded with 
people on its decks, waving handkerchiefs to 
their friends ashore, moves out of the wharf, 
it is one of the most striking and suggestive 
scenes to be witnessed on the water-front of the 
city, fruitful as it is in interesting suggestions. 
Although the stormy Atlantic has become merely 
a great ocean-ferry, an occasional terrible disas- 
ter by storm or fire still invests travel across 
its long leagues of sea with that dim sugges- 
tion of tragedy and horror which always belongs 



to the unknown. The scenes consequent on the 
arrival of an ocean-steamer have also their in- 
teresting phases, often mixed with a dash of the 
ludicrous, which grow out of the inspection of 
baggage by the Custom-House officers. 

For those visitors to New York, who may be 
contemplating foreign travel, it may be useful and 
interesting, in this connection, to learn something 
of the modus operandi of the Custom-House offi- 
cials on the arrival of any steamship from a for- 
eign port. The baggage of passengers is landed 
on the steamship-wharf as soon as practical after 
the vessel is docked. But, before any baggage 



RIVER AND WHARF SCENES. 



91 




Fish-Market, East River. 



is delivered, each passenger is required to make, l pay such duty, if any. The bLink forms of the 
under oath, an entry of his or her baggage, and i entries to be made are (if practicable) furnished 



a separate entiy, also under oath, of all articles 
contained in his or her baggage which, by the 
United States laws, are subject to duty, and to 



to each passenger after the vessel leaves quaran- 
tine by the customs officers, who also give the pas- 
senger all necessary information relative thereto. 




Fishing-Boats in Dock. 



92 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



In case uo customs officers come on board at quar- 
antine, the forms of entries are furnislied when 
the vessel arrives at her wharf. The senior mem- 
ber of a family coming together, if sufficiently ac- 
quainted with the contents of the baggage of the 
whole party to make a sworn statement of the 
same, is allowed to include all such baggage in 
one entry. Whenever any trunk or package 
brought by a passenger as baggage contains arti- 
cles subject to duty, and the value thereof ex- 
ceeds five hundred dollars, or if the quantity or 
variety of the dutiable articles is such that a prop- 
er examination, classification, or appraisement 
can not be made at the vessel, the trunk or pack- 
age is sent to the public store for appraisement. 
Passengers will find it useful to remember that 
wearing-apparel to be free must not only have 
been worn, but must show signs of wear; the 
intention to wear it one's self is not sufficient. 
Jewelry that has been worn or is in use as a per- 
sonal ornament is admitted free, but duty is de- 
manded on all watches but one brought in by a 
single passenger, even if all of them are old. In 
spite of the vigilance of the revenue officials, who 
watch with lynx-eyes every attempt to infringe 
on the regulations, there are not a few successful 
smugglers. Fair ladies, who belong to the most 
aristocratic circles, do not at times think it either 
sinful or undignified to evade paying duty on cost- 
ly laces, gloves, jewelry, and similar articles of 
luxury. The moral casuistry, by which one is 
persuaded that cheating the Government out of 
such small matters as customs dues is rather cred- 
itable than otherwise, is of the simplest kind, and 
almost intuitively appreciated by most people 
except the Government officials. The fun for 
the bystander is when one of these gentry de- 
tects the offense. The ruthless severity with 
which trunks and other baggage are then exam- 
ined and tossed about piece by piece, the dismay 
of the fair offender and her friends, and the ex- 
citement and curiosity of the wharf-loungers and 
workmen, make quite a little comedy. These 
occurrences occasionally appear in print; but, 
if the stories of the customs officials be true, 
most of the facts are quietly hushed up and 
kept from the knowledge of the eager and active 
reporter. 

The wharves are generally crowded with steve- 
dores and other laborers busy in loading and un- 
loading ships, and a continual succession of drays 
is going and coming, making the approaches more 
than ordinai'ily difficult to the foot-passenger, 
who hears, in an hour, if lie is not familiar with 
the argot of blasphemy, more sulphurous lan- 
guage in this quarter than he would otherwise 



learn in a month. The business of the stevedore 
is one requiring special skill and knowledge, as 
the problem of packing away the multifarious 
freight in the most compact form without too 
much interfering with the balance of the ship is 
not an easy one to solve. In and out of the 
swarm of laborers darts the ragged gutter-snipe, 
his sharp eye cocked for a chance to steal any ar- 
ticle, if it be only an orange or a cocoanut, when- 
ever the attention of the policeman is turned away 
from him. Accidents are not uncommon along 
the water-front, and one wonders that they are 
not more frequent. Strong men with bare breasts 
and arms, sweating in the hot sun, toil up and 
down the narrow gang-plank from ship to shore 
in an endless file, bearing on their stooping Shoul- 
ders great burdens of barrels, boxes, bales, etc. 
Suddenly one of these human dray-horses slips 
and falls a dozen feet or more, crushed and man- 
gled. Such is a passing episode, quickly accom- 
plished and soon forgotten in the tumult of hu- 
man interests surging around ; but it means untold 
misery and wretchedness to a few hearts. 

A brief walk from the great wharves of the 
North River carries us fairly into the heart of 
the produce trade which monopolizes West 
Street, from Canal Street to the Battery, and 
most of the intersecting streets as far back as 
Greenwich Street. Flour, meal, butter, eggs, 
cheese, meats, poultry, fish, cram the tall ware- 
houses and rude sheds, teeming at the water's 
edge to their fullest capacity. Fruit-famed New 
Jersey pours four fifths of its produce into this 
lap of distributive commerce ; the river-hugging 
counties above contribute their share ; and car- 
loads come trundling in from the West to feed 
the perpetually hungry maw of the Empire City. 

The concentration of this great and stirring 
trade is to be met with at Washington Market. 
This vast wooden structure, with its numerous 
outbuildings and sheds, is an irregular and un- 
sightly one, but presents a most novel and inter- 
esting scene within and without. The sheds are 
mainly devoted to smaller stands and smaller sales. 
Women with baskets offish and tubs of tripe on 
their heads, lusty butcher-boys lugging halves or 
quarters of beef or mutton into their carts, ped- 
dlers of every description, etc., tend to amuse 
and bewilder at the same time. Some of the 
produce dealers and brokers, who occupy the 
little box-like shanties facing the market from 
the river, do a business almost as large as any of 
the neighboring merchants boasting their five- 
story warehouses. The sidewalks some years 
ago were so clogged up by booths that passage 
was seriously impeded ; but this nuisance has 



94 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




Dry-Dock. 



been somewhat abated, though there is still a 
great chance for improvement. 

An interesting feature of the North River 
front will be found in the great wholesale oyster- 
boats, consisting of rusty and dilapidated-looking 
barges, moored by the stern to the wharves. Into 
these receptacles the sloops engaged in the oys- 
ter-trade discharge their cargoes, and thence 
the luscious bivalve is distributed to dealers in 
all parts of the city. Oysters are brought to 
New York from points as far south as Virginia 
and Maryland, and from the northern coast as 
far as Boston, but the bulk of them come from 
the inlets of the New Jersey coast and Long 
Island Sound. So valuable has the oyster busi- 
ness become, that acres of salt-water within fifty 
miles of New York, in favorable localities, are 
worth several fold the same area of dry land. 
Some oyster-farmers send to the city from one 
hundred to two hundred thousand bushels every 
season, and not a few become wealthy in a few 
years in pursuing this business. The seed- oys- 
ters are brought from the South, and are said 



to acquire their peculiar flavor by planting in 
Northern waters, though the epicures of Balti- 
more, Washington, and Richmond contemptu- 
ously deny this allegation of superior excellence. 
Oysters are good and plentiful in New York at 
all seasons of the year, in spite of the popular 
notion that they are only fit for food from Sep- 
tember to May. The trade, however, during the 
summer months is not active, and the oyster- 
merchants in their floating warehouses on the 
North River look disconsolate till the months 
containing the magical R pass by and bring in 
the stirring season again. 

At the southern end of the East River water- 
front we find the canal-boats which receive the 
freight of the Erie Canal, and the locality is so 
deceptive in its quietness that a stranger would 
never suspect the immense commerce which be- 
longs to it. The turtle-like crafts, painted gen- 
erally in the most grotesquely glaring colors, are 
so closely moored together, that one can easily 
walk across them from wharf to wharf. Men, 
women, and mayhap children, may be seen from 



RIVER AND WHARF SCENES. 



95 



time to time on their decks, and strings of fam- 
ily wasliing flutter in the breeze like ships' bunt- 
ing. One may see a cradle here, a dog there, 
and, perhaps, glaring at him from the next old 
tub, a belligerent tomcat. Here and there we 
may also see lace curtains at the windows, and 
flowers peeping from behind — in a word, all the 
signs of pleasant domesticity. If, like Asmode- 
us, we could see through the decks, we should 
probably find the stern divided into three or 
four compartments, provided with all the com- 
forts for a small family, even to parlor-organs 
and sewing-machines. The canal-boatmen have 
their homes on board these vessels, and often- 
times show no little taste in fitting them up. 
There was a time, many years ago, when these 
canal-men were a rough and quarrelsome lot, and 
many were the furious fights, oftentimes ending 
in homicide, which occurred. Like the flat-boat- 
men of the West, they were passionate, trucu- 
lent, and revengeful, though with many good 
qualities. But things have changed with this 
class of late years, and they are now as common- 
place and orderly as any exposed by the nature 
of things to a laborious and severe life. 

The principal lines of transportation from the 
West to the East include about ton thousand 
miles of railway, seven thousand miles of river. 



sixteen hundred miles of lake, and sixteen hun- 
dred miles of canal. The total freight carried 
over them in one year is about ten million tons, 
one fourth of which is transported by boats 
through the Erie Canal and down the Hudson 
River, a striking exhibit, which is emphasized 
by the fact that the canal is only open for six 
months in the year. The boats travel over ten 
million miles a season, and give employment to 
about twenty-eight thousand men and sixteen 
thousand horses and mules. Passing through 
the quiet valleys of the Genesee and the Mo- 
hawk, they appear so primitive in structure and 
slow in motion that few persons unfamiliar with 
the facts would be willing to give them credit 
for much usefulness ; they are towed on the river 
in long strings by great, white tow-boats, but, 
inert as they apparently are, their services to 
commerce far surpass those of the railway, whose 
trains travel in one day a greater distance than 
the boats travel in a week. 

Wall Street Ferry passed, with its crowds of 
passengers and vehicles, we glance at a dock full 
of the fruit-schooners that bring to the city or- 
anges, bananas, lemons, and grapes, from the 
tropics. No city in the world out of the tropics 
can show such a variety of luscious fruits. The 
immense contrast of climate within our own bor- 




Navy-Yard, Brooklyn. 



96 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



ders, and the proximity of New York to the 
West Indies, the most luxuriant fruit-producing 
region of the world, tills the market in turn with 
the most delicious products of vegetable nature. 
The sight of the booths in the fruit-market, with 
its burden of rich and varied color, is a study 
for the painter in its rich luxuriance of hues, as 
well as suggestive to the epicure. 

As the sight-seer strolls from wharf to wharf, 
he constantly sees something new to strike his 
attention. Here is the little Florida orange- 
schooner, with her sun-stained and shaggy sails 
and cordage, and boatmen still more brown and 
shaggy. There is a Cuban brigantine, with its 
richly odorous pineapples and bananas, and we 
can almost smell the balmy tropical breezes and 



see the glowing splendor of tropical vegetation 
as we give fancy the rein, and find ourselves 
transported thousands of miles away. We be- 
hold on the wharves cargoes of aromatic teas 
from China and Japan, pungent hides from 
Texas and Buenos Ayres, huge swollen bales of 
white cotton from Louisiana, coft'ees from Bra- 
zil and Venezuela, expensive silks and wines 
from France. The commerce of the most wide- 
ly scattered zones is emptied on these shabby 
wharves in kingly profusion, and, among it all, 
lounges some swart and bearded sailor, whose 
gay bandana and silver ear-rings show a being 
distinct from any ordinary type in his life, his 
tastes, and his notions. 

But here we find a fleet of smacks njoored. 




A Misty Morning. 



which sends thought in a different direction, and 
recalls to fancy the stiff breezes and shining bil- 
lows that toss the fisher-craft off the Newfound- 
land Banks. We are at the Fulton Ferry Fish- 
Market. This stands on the river-side of South 
Street, north of the ferry-house, and is a long,' 
low frame building of neat appearance, which 
is maintained by private enterprise. The fishing 
schooners and sloops discharge their cargoes at 
the market from the adjacent slips, and the fish 
are then laid out in attractive fashion on marble 
slabs or stored in bulk in great ice-chests. In 
the early morning the place is made a bedlam 
by the throngs of licensed venders and up-town 
retail dealers, laying in and carting away their 
daily supplies. 

As we stand here, by the Fulton Ferry dock. 



the Great East River Bridge looms up in its 
grand proportions, and we stop to admire one of 
the finest specimens of bridge-engineering in the 
world. We can not do better than give our 
readers some brief description of this lofty road- 
way, across which so much of the travel and 
traffic between the t.wo cities will ere long pass. 
The number of people who annually cross the 
river is now probably but little short of eighty 
million. The inadequacy of the ferries to ac- 
commodate the immense number of persons daily 
crossing between the two cities, and the inter- 
ruptions so often caused by fog and ice, led to 
the project of constructing this great bridge, 
which is not likely to be fully completed for 
another year, at least. The Brooklyn terminus 
will be in the square bounded by Fulton, Pros- 



EIVER AND WHARF SCENES. 



97 



pect, Sands, and Washington Streets ; the New 
York terminus in Chatham Square, opposite the 
City Hall Park. The supporting tower on the 
New York side is at Pier No. 29, near the foot 
of Roosevelt Street; 
and the corresponding 
tower in Brooklyn is 
just north of the Fulton 
Ferry-house. 

The bridge may be 
divided into five parts : 
the central span across 
the river from tower 
to tower, fifteen hun- 
dred and ninety-five 
feet long ; a span on 
each side from the tow- 
er to the anchorage, 
nine hundred and forty 
feet long; and the ap- 
proaches from the ter- 
minus to the anchorage 
on each side. The total 
length of the bridge 
closely approaches six 
thousand feet. The 
width, of eighty-five 
feet, will include a 
promenade of thirteen 
feet, two railroad- 
tracks, and four wagon 
or horse-car tracks. 
From high-water mark 
to the floor of the bridge 
in the center will be a 
distance of one hundred 
and thirty-five feet, a 
height considered great 
enough to remove all 
impediment to free nav- 
igation. The central 
span is suspended from 
four cables of steel wire, 
each sixteen inches in 
diameter, which are as- 
sisted by stays, the ca- 
bles having a deflec- 
tion of one hundred 
and twenty-eight feet. 
Each tower rests im- 
mediately on a caisson, 

sunk to the rock beneath the river, this being 
on the New York side about ninety feet below 
the surface of the water. The towers erected 
upon these foundations are one hundred and 
thirty-four by fifty -six feet at the water-line; 
7 



below the upper cornice at the top these di- 
mensions are reduced, by sloped off'sets at inter- 
vals, to one hundred and twenty feet by forty. 
The total height above high water of each tower 




is two hundred and sixty-eight feet. At the 
anchorages each of the four cables, after passing 
over the towers, enters the anchor-walls at an 
elevation of nearly eighty feet above high wa- 
ter, and passes through the masonry a distance 



98 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




of twenty feet, at 
which point a con- 
nection is formed 
with the anchor- 
chains. Each an- 
chorage contains 
about thirty-five 
thousand cubic 
yards of masonry. 
The spans from the 
anchorages to the 
towers are suspend- 
ed to the cables, and 
carried over the 
roofs of the build- 
ings underneath. 
The approach on 
the Brooklyn side 
from the terminus 
to the anchorage 
measures eight hun- 
dred and thirty-six 
feet; on the New 
York side, thirteen 
hundred and thirty- 
six feet. These ap- 
proaches are sup- 
ported by iron gird- 
ers and trusses, 
which will rest at 
short intervals upon 
piers of masonry, or 
iron columns built 
within the blocks 
crossed and occu- 
pied. The streets 
are crossed by stone 
arches at such ele- 
vations as to leave 
them unobstructed. 
The Brooklyn ter- 
minus is sixty-eight 
feet above high tide. 
The cost has already 
largely exceeded the 
original estimate for 
the entire work, and 
before it is fully 
completed some fif- 
teen million dollars 
will in all probabil- 
ity have been ex- 
pended. The heavy 
in a s o n r y for the 
anchorages and 
street approaches is 



RIVER AND WHARF SCENES. 



99 



at the time of this writing far advanced toward 
completion in both New York and Brooklyn. 

It has been proposed to have both steam and 
horse-car transit over the bridge, and, if this is 
accomplished, it will be not only an important re- 
sult in railroad economy as applied to city travel, 
but a most picturesque and striking fact in our 
city life. In all essential ways New York and 
Brooklyn must be regarded as the one metrop- 
olis, and nowhere else in the world will the eye 



be greeted with lines of metropolitan traffic and 
travel running one hundred and thirty-five feet 
above the water-level. 

Hurrying past Roosevelt, Hunter's Point, and 
Catharine Street Ferries, we are next curiously 
struck in contemplating the system of dry docks. 
Marvelously crazy, rotten, twisted, unsightly ob- 
jects these dry docks are, but they are most im- 
portant adjuncts to the marine interests of New 
York, for it is here that vessels are put in hospital 




High Bridge. 



for repairs. We draw near the iron-foundries 
and the gas-works as we pass along in our tour 
of inspection, and the shipping begins to be less 
thick, the traffic less noisy. A common sight in 
this neighborhood is a battered old turret-ship or 
an old frigate lying in ordinary at moorings. Not 
only have there been built here the huge boilers 
and ponderous engines of many an ocean-steamer, 
but the iron sides of the steamers themselves 
have been fused, and cast, and shaped, and 
bolted, and built on this spot. You note your 
approach to the works by the overflow of super- 
fluous iron-ware. Vast, rusty, propped-up cav- 
erns of iron confront you ; abandoned boilers, 
big enough for church-steeples, encumber all the 
highways ; smaller fragments of iron, of mani- 
fold mysterious shapes, lie piled up on every curb- 
stone. Then appear the tall walls, the great 
chimneys, and all the horrible confusion of vast 
work-yards and workshops. All about is grimy 



and repulsive. The mud is black with coal-dust ; 
the pools of w^ater dark and dismal ; the low, rot- 
ten, wretched houses clustering about, damp and 
sooty ; all the faces, and all the walls, and all 
the posts, and every object, grimy and soiled ; 
while the distracting din of innumerable ham- 
mers " closing rivets up " unites in rendering the 
whole scene purgatorial. A great industry and 
source of wealth is the iron interest, but the 
manipulation of that indispensable metal has 
abundant harsh and discordant features. Be- 
yond the iron- works are more ship-yards, more 
ferries, more vessels, with wharf-building, lot- 
filling, dirt-dumping, and what-not. 

A brief glance at the Brooklyn Navy- Yard, 
which is on the south shore of Wallabout Bay, 
and about opposite Corlear's Hook, will be of 
interest to the reader. This is the principal 
naval station in the country, and the grounds 
embrace a total area of one hundred and forty- 



100 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



four acres, incliidiug more than a mile of splen- 
did wharfage. About two thousand men are 
employed here almost constantly, and tlie station 
is under the command of a commodore of the 
United States Navy. The visitor will find here 
a myriad of things to interest his attention, but 
over these we must pass hastily with a brief de- 
scription of the immense dry dock, which is one 
of the most, remarkable structures of the kind in 
the world. It is built of granite, and the main 
chamber is two hundred and eighty-six feet long 
by thirty-five feet wide at the bottom, and three 
hundred and seven feet long by ninety-eight feet 
wide at the top, with a depth of thirty-six feet. 
The enormous steam-pumps connected with the 
dock can empty it of water in four and a half 
hours. This dock cost considerably over two 
million dollars. 

The United States Naval Lyceum, founded 
by officers of the Navy in 1833, is situated in the 
Navy- Yard. It has a fine library and a large 
collection of curiosities, together with valuable 
geological and mineralogical cabinets. Just east 
of the Navy-Yard are extensive marine barracks, 
and on the opposite side of "Wallabout Bay is the 
Marine Hospital, a handsome structure surround- 
ed by twenty-one acres of ground, and having 
accommodations for five hundred jiatients. The 
yard is under the command of a commodore of 
the United States Navy. 

Crossing to the New York side again and 
hastening up the line of wharves, at last we 
reach the upper portion of the East River water- 
front, where we seem to have passed out of the 
domain of commerce and manufacture, and a kind 
of lazy life pervades the docks almost as sluggish 
and easy-going as that of some coasting port. 
Ferry-boats and steamboats plow the river, and 
a fleet of sail and row boats glide pleasantly over 
the calm water, suggestive of anything but the 
bustle and turmoil of a great city. As we ap- 
proach Harlem Bridge, which crosses the Har- 
lem River at One Hundred and Twenty-ninth 
Street and Third Avenue, the scene is pictu- 
resque and attractive. 

In this vicinity a large number of boat- clubs 
have their headquarters, and here most of the 
races occur. On any pleasant day, as one stands 
on the bridge, he will see racing-shells flash 
through the water propelled by brawny arms. 
Boats are always found here to let, either for 
pleasure-parties or exercise with the single scull, 
and it need not be said that Harlem Bridge is a 
favorite resort for tlie young athletes of the city. 



On a holiday the river presents a most gay and 
lively aspect. Steamboats, steam-launches, and 
small crafts, loaded with pleasure-seekers, fill 
the water on all sides, and row-boats glide in 
and out under the swift strokes of athletic oars- 
men. Everybody seems bent on pleasure, but 
amid the joyous crowd we see little confusion 
and hear no loud oaths, for it is the more orderly 
and decent class that seeks diversion in this 
quarter. Perhaps nowhere in New York or its 
environs can be witnessed a more breezy, pict- 
uresque, and exhilarating scene than the Har- 
lem River on one of these occasions, when every- 
body is bent for an outing on the water. 

Farther up the Harlem River, at One Hun- 
dred and Seventy-fifth Street, we reach Triigh 
Bridge, on which the Oroton Aqueduct is car- 
ried across the river and valley. The bridge is 
fourteen hundred and sixty feet long, and sup- 
ported by thirteen arches resting on solid gran- 
ite piers, the crown of the highest arch be- 
ing one hundred and sixteen feet above the 
water-level. The water is carried over the 
bridge in large cast-iron pipes protected by brick 
masonry. The visitor, as he strolls over the 
fine footpath on the bridge, has a noble prospect 
greeting his eyes, well repaying him for the troub- 
le of his journey. There are several hotels and 
restaurants in the vicinity, and this locality has 
for a long while been a favorite one for Sunday 
and holiday excursions. On the left or island 
side of the river are a handsome high-service 
tower and engine-house, which play an impor- 
tant part in raising the distributing source to 
the proper level for service in supplying Croton 
water to the upper part of the city. With the 
new facilities of transit recently furnished by the 
completion of the railroad-bridge, enabling the 
cars of the Metropolitan Elevated road to reach 
High Bridge, there is no reason wliy this should 
not become one of the favorite resorts of the hol- 
iday seekers of New York. The air is deliciously 
pure and cool even on warm days, the landscape 
a most charming one, and there are a variety of 
pleasant rural strolls on both sides of the river, 
WMth easy passage from one to the other. 

In our rai)id glance at the extended water- 
front of New York, it goes without saying that 
many interesting facts have been passed unno- 
ticed, but enough has been said to show the vis- 
itor to the Empire City what a fund for sugges- 
tive thought as well as amusement is offered to 
him in making a circuit of the wharves which 
fringe the borders of New York. 



ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES. 



101 



AKCHITECTURAL FEATURES 



nVTOWHERE in the world have so many dif- 
-LN ferent styles of building found expression 
as in the United States. The fact that there is 
no special style which is the outcome of our peo- 
ple and our national life, none indigenous to our 
soil, united with the alert and eclectic mind of 



the American, has resulted in great multiplicity 
of architectural motive and ornament. Not only 
is this the case, but it is no less true tliat many 
of our most pleasing structures are composite in 
their character, presenting features of different 
styles, which are often blended into artistic unity 




Roof and Windows, corner Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street. 



with much ingenuity and knowledge, though it 
is not uncommon again to observe occasional in- 
congruity in these ambitious attempts. 

The student of New York buildings will dis- 
cover specimens of every kind, from battlement- 
ed and turreted imitations of the castles of the 
middle ages to the high-roofed French houses 
which contain one or two stories above the cor- 
nice. In these latter the retreating slant of 
the roof, as well as the slightly receding side- 
wall of the house itself, has served to give the 
occupants more light and air than would be af- 
forded in the winter time by straight fagades in 
the narrow and dark streets of old Paris. Many 
of the buildings are picturesque and agreeable to 
the eye, and for their pleasant qualities of form 
we are glad to see them springing up in the 
midst of our own cities, whose climatic or politi- 
cal necessities are totally different from those that 
gave them birth. We conceive that pleasant 
things or beautiful things, within certain limits, 



are their own reason for being, if these qualities 
do not interfere with more serious uses, a con- 
sideration always important. 

A style in considerable vogue is that of the 
French chateau, with its turrets of dift"erent 
shapes, finials, quaintly decorated chimneys, etc., 
giving an impression of great airiness and light- 
ness, no matter how massive and solid the gen- 
eral structure. In the magnificent Vanderbilt 
house, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty- 
seventh Street, this French chateau style is con- 
siderably modified by old Dutch characteristics, 
these features being carried out with great elabo- 
ration and variety in the ornamentation. It may 
be a question whether this profusion of decora- 
tion produces on the whole as pleasant an effect 
on the eye as would a greater unity and sim- 
plicity, but assuredly the most carping critic 
could not go so far as to call it meretricious, as 
in the general effect we discern some relation of 
ornament to use. This is particularly noticeable 



102 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



in the modified Dutch windows, which in con- 
nection with the chimneys break the sky-line so 
picturesquely, and suggest light, air, and cheerful- 
ness in the interior. In some particulars this house 
resembles that of another member of the Vander- 
bilt family, at the corner of Fifty-second street 
and the same avenue (see p. 30). Both houses are 
striking and unique in design, and are notable ex- 
amples of recent outcomes of architectural art. 

Nowhere in New 
York can be seen a 
p. greater variety of 

15 architectural feat- 

ures in private 
houses than in Fif- 
ty-seventh Street, 
where lor half 




Facades, Fifty-seventh Street, between Fifth and S xth Avenues 



dozen squares the eye is continually delighted 
with striking and original forms. This is alike no- 
ticeable in the porches, the windows, and the 
general effect of the front. We observe in these 
novel structures a pleasing irregularity, which is 
independent of old conventional notions, and a 
daring of design, which has been carried out 
with enough harmony of detail to relieve it from 
the imputation of the grotesque, while it fasci- 
nates the fancy by its freshness and piquancy. 

Between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Fifty- 
seventh Street may be seen a group of houses 
which illustrate this admirably. There is such a 
quaint confusion iti the facades of these houses 
as to make them difficult to describe. The first 
one on the left of the illustration is peculiarly 
novel in style. The low, flat steps leading from 
the street at an angle, 
give an air of seclusion 
and ])rivacy to the porch 
without detracting from 
its openness. This pe- 
culiarity of the porch, 
as we shall see more 
fully further on, is a 
feature of many of the 
newer New York houses. 
The two bay-windows 
of the house which we 
are now noticing make 
the most curious charac- 
teristic of its front. The 
outer projections of the 
lower window sweep 
upward in a long curve, 
making an apparent 
foundation for the upper 
window, which extends 
farther outward, the two 
windows thus offering 
an appearance of unity 
of design and structure. 
The imagination sees, 
behind this decorative 
effect given the front, a 
fullness and airiness of 
outlook from the interi- 
or, which come of this 
arrangement, that make 
the house very charm- 
ing. For, even to the 
observer of the exterior 
of a house, where hu- 
man beings make their 
home, there is a dispo- 
sition to judge the char- 



AECHITECTURAL FEATURES. 



103 



acter of the front and the general external ap- 
pearance with some reference to a guess at its 
adaptability for the uses of those that dwell there- 
in. In the adjoining house represented in the illus- 
tration, the approach is even more indirect, there 
being two angles in the line of steps. The deep 
porch, the massive bay-window of the first story, 
the heavy window-copings and lintels, and the 
broad and rich but simple decoration of the facade 
combine to present a pleasant picture, . full of 
home-like suggestions. In both of these resi- 
dences there is great individuality of taste, alike in 
the general lines and the treatment of ornament. 
In Madison Avenue, near Fortieth Street, the 
eye is attracted by a row of fine residences ad- 
mirably designed in their general eff"ect, in which 
soundness and honesty of construction go hand- 
in-hand with picturesqueness of style. The two 
houses on the right of the illustration are pe- 
culiarly noticeable. The porches are pro- 
tected from the street by their guarded 
approaches, 
walled in by 
massive and 
richly -decorat- 
ed stone balus- 
trades. In the 
first example 
the simply de- 
signed oriel- 
window of the 
second story is 
surmounted 
with vase - like 
decorations, 
and makes an 
open balcony 
for the third 
story. The ad- 
joining house 
is still more 
striking in 
architectural 
character, from 
the double oriel 
front and the 
dormer-win- 
dows which 
project from 
the attic. Both 
these houses 
are somewhat 
Elizabethan in 
their style, and 
succeed in com- 
bining the as- 



pect of solidity with lightness and grace, a result 
more easily attained, perhaps, by the judicious 
use of the oriel and dormer window than through 
any other means. 

A good example of tasteful and attractive 
fronts may be noticed in Fifty-seventh Street, 
between Fifth and Madison Avenues. Here the 
porch does not project, and is entered directly 
from the street, the only distinguishing feature 
of the arched doorway being the difterence of 
color in its upper facing. In one of these houses 
a fine oriel-window, which also furnishes a bal- 
cony for the second story, gives a decorative 




Facades, Madison Avenue, near Fortieth Street. 



104 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



effect to the house-front. Dormer-windows in 
the steep tri.ingular roof, which is L^id in bright 
tiles, give an additional effect of picturesqiieness. 
These houses have a peculiarly bright, open, 
cheerful look, which attracts the fancy, perhaps, 
more than would more somber dwellings, far 
more elaborate in style and decoration. 




Facades, Fifty-seventh Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues. 



The new buildings of Columbia College, in 
Madison Avenue, between Foi-ty-ninth and Fif- 
tieth Streets, are good specimens of the Eliza- 
bethan style, and impress the mind pleasantly 
from the cheerfulness of their aspect. Gothic 
windows in the first story, square windows 
above, oriels placed here and there, and dormer- 
windows in the roof, break up the severity of the 
front, and give a decorative effect without de- 
tracting from the clois- 
ter-like air which seems 
peculiarly suitable to a 
college structure. But- 
tresses rising in pillar- 
forms high above the 
eaves of the roof sub- 
divide the front, and 
lessen that uniformity 
which arises from a 
long succession of arch- 
itectural effects similar 
in character. Some of 
the newer buildings of 
Yale and Harvard may 
be more elaborate in 
their decorations, but 
we know of no college 
structures in America 
in which simplicity and 
grace of outline are 
more appropriately 
dignified by ornamen- 
tation, or better sug- 
gest the purpose and 
nature of the buildings 
themselves. Columbia 
College has only for a 
short time been settled 
in its new home, but 
it has just reason to be 
proud of its success in 
suiting the structural 
design of a college, 
while it has added 
buildings that dignify 
and ornament the city. 
In Fifty-seventh 
Street, west of Fifth 
Avenue, may be ad- 
mired a residence 
which has no superior 
in New York for rich 
and elaborate but taste- 
ful ornamentation. It 
begins with that sound 
principle of taste that 



ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES. 



105 



the appearance of solidity and strength should 
never be sacrificed to the purely decorative ele- 
ment. This is carried out from the foundation to 
the roof, and nowhere do we see a suggestion of 
that finical style which sacrifices mass and dignity 
to the mere art of the stone-cutter. Yet the whole 
fagade presents a variety of ornamental effects, 
which make the house one of exceptional beauty. 
The first striking feature which we notice is the 
triangular oriel, presumably the outlook of the 
drawing-room, which marks the first story. This 
projects so far as to furnish a base for the bay- 
window of an octagonal shape on the front of 
the second story, which 
has also a quaint little 
iron balcony running 
out flush with the outer 
projection of the first 
oriel. Crowning this 
bay-window is a large 
and roomy stone bal- 
cony, on which the 
elaborately decorated 
windows of the third 
story open. The porch 
is richly carved, rising 
in graceful lines to the 
support of a pretty bal- 
cony, which has a fine 
Gothic window-frame 
above. Dormer-win- 
dows surmounted with 
finials break the lines 
of the tiled roof, and 
complete a very pleas- 
ing ensemble. The 
basement of the house 
is massive, and fully 
equal to carrying off 
the richness of archi- • 
tectural treatment, 
which makes the upper 
stories so attractive. 
The heavy balustrade 
which leads up to the 
porch is carried out 
on the pavement in a 
massive wall founda- 
tion surmounted by an 
iron fence and stopped 
with stone pillars at 
the area entrance. In 
this fine house we have 
another example of the 
very effective use of 
different colored stone, 



harmoniously suited to produce a decorative ef- 
fect, and bringing out the essential beauty of 
lines in more emphatic degree. 

Another house in Fifty-seventh Street, of 
much simpler style, gives us a good example of a 
second-story bay-window effectively treated. It 
may be assented that the section of an octagon 
is on the whole the most 
desirable form for a 
window of this kind, as 
it is not only more orna- 
mental and symmetrical 
in appearance, trat gives 




Faqade, Columbia College. 



106 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



also a more perfect outlook for the occupants, 
which is the principal reason for being of this 
style of construction. We shall refer to these 
features of architecture more at length furtlier 
on, as they make an important element in do- 
mestic architecture in New York, after consider- 
ing another characteristic of New York houses 
even more sui generis — the porch. 

Nowhere in the cities of the world can be 
found more graceful and charming household 
porches than those characterizing the best resi- 
dence streets of New York. A pleasant entrance 
to a building, whether public or private, is like 




Fai^ade, Fifty-seventh Street west of Fifth Avenue 



an agreeable title to a book, or a beautiful face 
in man or woman, which immediately recom- 
mends itself as well as what is behind it. 

Whether a stranger walk up Fifth Avenue or 
pass down Broadway, cross the side streets or 
linger in the squares, we think, if he be from any 
part of Europe, he must be impressed by the 
easy access to all the buildings, indicating peace 
and security. There is nowhere a trace of a 
thought in the builder of general violence, such 
as made the heavily-clamped doors of Italy 
necessary as a bulwark against turbulence and 
sudden riot. Our little iron grating before base- 
ment windows, found almost solely in New York, 
bears small comparison with the bars as big as a 
man's arm, which make every considerable struct- 
ure in Genoa and Florence look like a fortress, 
which in fact it is, or was when first erected. 
Our porches, like our general architecture, have 
their faults, but they indicate a peaceful condi- 
tion of society, and are only strong enough to 
resist the weather or a chance vagrant. Our 
porches thus express our institutions. The peace- 
ful character of the entrance of our buildings to 
a thoughtful person has tlie broadest and deepest 
significance, but yet it touches little ^er se on the 
aesthetic taste of the people, except in some of 
the new styles of porches, which are really archi- 
tecturally beautiful and decorative. 

New York porches are cheerful, and almost 
without exception afford an idea of hospitality 
and ease, quite unlike the flat wings resembling 
the doors of a stable or coach-house, level with 
the sidewalk, which mark the entrance to every 
house in Paris, except where heavy iron gates, 
before an iron fence fifteen or twenty feet high, 
conceal the edifice buried in thick verdure. 

Nothing can be more dismal and forbidding 
tlian the little dark doors all over London, very 
narrow and very low ; flat with the level of the 
house, and only raised two or three steps above 
the level of the sidewalk. These doorways are 
so inconspicuous that they merge into the gen- 
eral contour of the dark, soot-colored brick wall, 
and at night it is only above the door 
itself that a little half-moon-shaped 
window, banded by an iron frame- 
work to STnall panes of glass, shows 
the pale lamp faintly glimmering, or 
_ else a lantern over the doorway marks 

[ its position. 

Such is the impression which Lon- 
_ don makes upon the stranger, and m 

^ nearly every city of Europe it is as a 

means of defense and repulsion, and. 
not of open-handed or open-hearted 



ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES. 



107 



greeting, that the doorway seems to have been 
conceived. 

Of the position of the doorway in the gen- 
eral outline of the building there may be grave 
question, but its pleasantness, per se, is another 
matter. With the impression fresh in mind of 
the English, the French, or the Italian prison-like 
barriers against the world without, expressed by 
their blind and unsightly entrances, multitudes 
of New York porches abound in grace and 
cheerfulness. Passing along one of our well- 
tenanted streets on a spring morning, the sight 
of its open outside-door-leaves thrown back, to 
disclose the plate-glass entrance to the vestibule 
within, is most gay and cheering. Flower-pots 
frequently abound here, or traiUng vines, lodged 
upon the flat roof of the stoop above, hang in 
long pendants of green over the brown archi- 
trave of stone. Such is the sight on a warm 
morning; and a mild evening witnesses the 
family gathered beneath its roof or scattered in 
the side balconies. A New York land- owner 
can aiford to set his house a few feet back in 
his lot for the sake of getting freer breathing- 
space in a widened street in front, and less noise 
and dust than a closer proximity to the thorough- 
fare would give him ; and, above all, for the 
sake of having his handsome out-door little room 
or loggia in his projecting porch. 

"We shall now give some examples of New 
York doorways, both in public and private build- 
ings, where the type has been modified in ac- 
cordance with individual taste, and the main 
fact of a porch is combined with ideas less trite 
than are shown in the work of ordinary build- 
ing contractors. 

Nowhere are ingenuity and good taste in this 
respect better exemplified than in some of the 
new buildings erected by banks and other cor- 
porations down-town. There has been a decided 
tendency of late years among companies, who 
have been highly successful in their business op- 
erations, to commemorate their business achieve- 
ments by the erection of magnificent structures, 
unique in their design as well as lavish in their 
costliness. . Some passing glance at these, be- 
fore studying further the characteristics of do- 
mestic architecture, will be of interest to our 
readers. 

In Wall Street, below Broad, the Queen In- 
surance Company has erected one of the most 
noticeable business structures in New York. 
Stone and marble of different colors have been 
freely used, and the effect is very rich and agree- 
able, but not meretricious. The ornament is not 
frittered away in detail, but carried out with 




Porch and Window, Fifty-seventh Street, west of Fifth Avenue. 

great breadth, though elaborate in treatment. 
The conception of massiveness and dignity, which 
is so essential to any great building devoted to 
business uses, is thus preserved, while the eye 
is delighted by broken lines and brilliant though 
harmonious contrasts of color. The architect of 
this fine building must have had something of the 
painter's sense, so successful has he been in pre- 
serving genuinelj^ artistic combination of color in 
the use of material, while keeping in view the 
purposes of the structure. 

Low, broad steps lead to the doorway, the 
whole construction of which is admirable. The 
porch is heavy and massive, overhung with a 
richly decorated Gothic arch. This rests on 
short pillars, Corinthian in style, of variegated 
red marble, and the latter are again supported on 
buttress-like pilasters, carved with the peculiar 
Corinthian decoration. Pillars resting on but- 



108 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




Porches in Wall Street, below Broad. 



tresses also decorate the window-facings, and 
carry out the general design. The marked feat- 
ures of this building are the beauty and origi- 
nality of the porch and the effective use of color 
in architecture, and, for this reason, single it out 
as one of the most striking types of the tenden- 
cies of architectural art in our midst. The great 
activity of property-owners in the business por- 
tions of New York in tearing down old buildings, 
many of them still fine structures, for the pur- 
pose of erecting new ones, will probably soon 
decorate the city with many business buildings, 
no less beautiful in design and treatment than 
the noble quarters of the Queen Insurance Com- 
pany. 

Another striking example of the decorated 
porch in the business building may be seen on 
the corner of Nassau and Beeknian Streets. The 



Morse Building is built 
of red, pressed brick, 
and is remarkable for 
its elevation and mas- 
siveness. Its architect- 
ural beauty, however, 
is principally observ- 
able in the treatment 
of the porch and win- 
dows. The round arch 
of the doorway is sur- 
mounted by a triangu- 
lar pediment, and the 
elaborately carved but- 
tresses that frame in 
the porch givef great 
dignity to its general 
effect. AVhile lingering 
at this impressive street 
corner, one is reminded 
of the fact that brick 
is coming more and 
more into vogue again 
in New York. Fifty 
years ago this material 
was the favorite among 
builders and architects, 
and justly so on account 
of its great adaptability 
for decorative purposes, 
its richness of color, and 
its indestructibility. 
Brown-stone then be- 
came the rage, and has 
since been the most 
popular material. 
Beautiful as freestone 
is in texture, and ad- 
mirably as it takes the carver's tools, its liabil- 
ity to flake off", crack, and become disfigured by 
dirty weather-stains, has always been an objec- 
tion to it. One may see whole squares of fine 
buildings in Fifth Avenue and other streets, 
where the surface of the stone has been so 
gnawed and honey-combed by time and weather 
as to present a most unsightly aspect. The Con- 
necticut sandstone, which is the best, has be- 
come so expensive on account of the great dif- 
ficulty of working it, that people erecting houses 
have been tempted to try other poorer quarries, 
and the result may be seen in many a disfigured 
and ugly front. 

Many good effects are produced when in 
English-basement houses a square, projecting 
porch, wide and deep, rises but a foot or two 
above the sidewalk, and is made to unite and 



AROHITECTUKAL FEATURES. 



109 



form into the main line of the fagade, by a small 
bay-window in the second story extending so as 
partially to occupy its flat roof. Bay-windows, 
especially when they extend as sections of an 
octagon, are among the most graceful and elegant 
features of bouse convenience and beauty ; and 
when, as in one of these that we recall, just out 
of Fifth Avenue, the extension is so shallow as 
to allow of a little balcony to intervene between 
its French windows and the projecting top of 
the porch, its bright-green plants and shining 
plate-glass windows are pleasant and elegant. 
The essential point that should be striven for is 
to place porches quite low in the line of the 
house-fronts. The slight difference between the 
elevation of the flight of steps that may be seen 
in the houses at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 
Eighteenth Street, and the narrower, higher, 
steeper ones of their neigh- 
bors, w^ill convince most peo- 
ple of the instinctive feeling 
of agreeableness which one 
derives from a low-settin^, 
porch. With the compara- 
tively great height of New 
York houses, the proportion- 
ate size of the foundation 
should be commensurate, but 
in such cases it ought, to have 
an aesthetic effect, to be ap- 
parently concealed, as, for 
instance, by the broad and 
broken line of side-steps, for 
the same reason that we bank 
up or terrace over the cellar- 
walls of our homes in the 
country. The porch of Trin- 
ity School, in Twenty-fifth 
Street, is an excellent exam- 
ple of this arrangement. A 
good specimen of the oppo- 
site of this class of faults is 
aff'orded by the excessive size 
and undue covering up of the 
lower story of the Academy of 
Design, whose porch is large 
enough and whose rising steps 
are broad enough for a build- 
ing of double its height and 
double its size. The illustra- 
tion we give affords a very 

good idea of this section of "" 
the building. The porch and 
stairway are fine in them- 
selves, and from the color and 
detailed ornamentoftheirma- 



terials are still more striking. All who have seen 
it will remember the very imposing Giant's Stair- 
case which leads from the pavement to the j)'>'e- 
miere etage of the Ducal Palace at Venice. Large 
and ponderous in detail, it is yet strictly in keep- 
ing with the length and heiglit of a building on 
whose general style the National Academy was 
professedly constructed. Our thoughtful archi- 
tects build for the future, and it was in antici- 
pation of the time when the Academy-wall might 
be continued to Twenty-fourth Street, and take 
in a much larger section between Fourth and 
Madison Avenues, that this doorway, with its 
high, pointed top, its pleasant marbles, and its 
careful carvings, was constructed. At present, 
however, the building seems rather an appendage 
of the front door, than the latter to afford an 
opening to an important interior. 




Porch of Morse Building, ^Jassau, corner of Beekman Street. 



110 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



The porcli of the Dry Dock Savings-Bank, 
which is attached to one of the most interesting 
buildings in New York, shares with the rest of 
the structure the advantage of having been 
planned by a very able and imaginative archi- 
tect. This is no exception to the rule of the 
agreeableness of a porch that stands low with 
the side-wall. Placed at an angle of the Bowery 




Entrance to the Academy of Design. 

which allows the main wall to recede from the 
street, a corner is formed for this porch, which 
enables it to project twelve feet or more, and 
not interfere with the line of the sidewalk. The 
porch, with a second story added to it, forms a 
dignified feature of the structure, and it other- 
wise would be insignificant and trivial if com- 
posed only of a little square projection from a 
long and high facade. Its upper story gives it 



presence, and it is besides very suggestive in its 
details. In the same way that the minute carv- 
ings of ivy-leaves, oaks, and woodbine, are an 
agreeable study in the pillars and iron railing of 
the Academy of Design, so the lace-like tracery 
in the gray sandstone above the arches and 
above the columns of the porch of the Savings- 
Bank is highly grateful. In this Moorish-Ara- 
besque work, the taste of the architect, who has 
made this tracery an attractive feature of the in- 
trocessed arched doors of the Jewish temple in 
Fifth Avenue, is conspicuous. 

But while the doors of New York houses 
form the most numerous class of pleasant, con- 
venient, or cheerful entrances, though mixed 
with plenty of poor oties, the 
churches of the city give the 
best opportunity for the dis- 
play of the experience and 
taste of the builder. We have 
said that, if it Avere possible, 
the porch should form a dig- 
nified architectural section of 
each building, which these 
little square extensions, with 
their breaking line of steps, 
do not always fulfill. Every 
one familiar, either in real- 
ity or by photographs, with 
the great churches of Europe, 
will recall how often the lofty 
arch of the main entrance 
glides in structural effect into 
the contours of the big, round 
window above it, whose 
framework and decorations 
in their turn form part of the 
rising lines w^hich end in the 
pointed front of the majestic 
edifice. This idea, we think, is 
the right one, and the door- 
ways of some of our own 
churches bear out this rela- 
tion. Many of these, and es- 
pecially the Gothic ones, have 
doorways which begin a se- 
ries of breaks to a receding 
wall of a high tower, as may be seen particu- 
larly in the two on Fifth Avenue between For- 
tieth and Fiftieth Streets. The new Catholic 
Cathedral carries out the intention of the Eu- 
ropean church-door fully, and its very high, 
arched entrance, so rich in carved detail and in 
clustered columns, seems a fitting support, with 
the heavy pillars tliat form the sides of the arches, 
to the great carved-stone window-frame above it. 



AECHITECTURAL FEATURES. 



Ill 



Of pleasant church-doors, that of the Church of 
the Heavenly Rest, in Fifth Avenue near Forty- 
fifth Street, of which we give an illustration, is 
one of the most elegant ; constructed largely of 
colored marbles, polished and carved, its broad, 
low, front porch and its rich color make it a con- 
spicuous ornament to the avenue. 

The new buildings of the city present most 
frequently interesting doors, but in some of the 
oldest structures of New York we find agreeable 
objects to contemplate. The shallow Grecian 
porch, which characterizes some of our old-fash- 
ioned houses, has been condemned by many, but 
it has a certain austere cheerfulness of its own 
not to be overlooked ; and strolling along busy 
Broadway at noon, or after the sun has length- 
ened the shadows on the tall stores that surround 
it, the weather-beaten front of St. Paul's is full 
of pleasant associations, with its brown walls, its 
white-marble memorial tablets, and the carved 
bass-reliefs above it, now subdued and softened 
by time. It has an interest to the antiquarian 
and the artist that is absent from many a newer 
structure. Houses, too, not yet very old, have 
a pleasantness all their own. Open garden-lots 
between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets in 
Foui-th Avenue, in the back of which, on either 
side of the avenue, stand old 
fashioned, comfortable dwell- 
ings, whose iron balconies f=^^ 
make one of the most agree- ^^i | ^, 

able features about them, "j ..J^'C-^" 

offer a pleasant rustic picture t^^/l-^'-- [ 

to the eye. Extending across ^-.•, I J-o-iT- ", 

the width of these ample '4--^." - 

fronts, the verandas with 
their roofs, and partially cov 
ered with iron trellis-work, 
half veil alike the long French 
windows which open out 
upon the balcony, and shield 
the front door from too cu- 
rious eyes. The door-steps 
are quite low and few, and 
the slight height of the base- 
ment is hidden from observa- 
tion by the extended iron- 
work and by low shrubs. 

The conventional "high 
stoop," which is found in so 
many New York houses, is 
peculiar to the city. In the 
expensive houses in Fifth Av- 
enue and its cross-streets, the 
old-fashioned stoop has been 
modified and elaborated into 



a roomy and imposing porch, generally supported 
by Corinthian pillars, the architrave, fringe, and 
cornice above being of the same style. As this 





Porch of Trinity School, Twenty-fifth Street. 



112 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



stoop is higher than it was in the original from 
which it is descended, it has a questionable feat- 
ure in the necessity it involves for a long row of 
steps rising twelve or fifteen feet to connect the 
homestead with the outer world. "When, how- 
ever, the steps and balustrade are so arranged as 
to form an important feature in the lower struct- 
ure of the wall, it only needs that the front 
doors should be placed together by pairs, to 
double the pleasant break in the appearance of 




Porch of the Dry-Dock Savings-Bank. 



the foundation, and to remove the sense of awk- 
wardness and unfitness which one has in survey- 
ing the ordinary high stoop. 

An excellent example of a doorway with side- 
steps may be seen in East Thirty-sixth Street. 
The balustrade facing the street gives a slight 
sense of privacy, while the top of the projecting 
roof of the porch forms an up-stairs balcony 
pleasant in its suggestion as a small sitting-room 
for warm evenings, and is as important in giving 
dignity and mass to the porch as a 
heavy Grecian architrave would be. 
There are a good many varieties of 
these side-steps in the city. Where 
we find them in a house on a corner 
lot, which gives opportunities* for 
pleasantly arranged end-windows, and 
also in many cases for a little strip of 
sodded yard to skirt the house, the 
effect is peculiarly agreeable. In one 
house of this description, the building 
does not occupy the entire width of 
the lot, and the steps and opening in 
a stone balustrade begin ten or twelve 
feet to the side of the front porch. 
Rising from the sidewalk by three 
or four low steps, a square platform 
makes an agreeable landing half-way 
up, and, at right angles to the others, 
a few more stairs bring the visitor to 
the broad platform of stone beneath 
the projecting roof of the front door- 
way. Such an arrangement, with its 
turning and its broken line, adds to 
the sense of space about a dwelling, 
and, while the reason is aware that 
the house is really at the usual dis- 
tance frou) the sidewalk, fancy cheats 
the feelings, as it does in the multi- 
tude of windings in Central Park, 
when we believe that we have gone 
a long distance even where we can 
see that the path we quitted ten min- 
utes ago is only two or three rods 
from us. It is said that the hearth 
and the front door are the strong 
points of pleasure and pride to every 
housewife, and it is to be hoped that, 
with the revival of the open fire, the 
importance of a cheerful, a beautiful, 
and an easy entrance to the hospitable 
home will be generally recognized. 

The striking use of towers and 
windows as a feature of architectural 
decoration among the newer houses 
erected in the fashionable streets of 



ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES. 



113 



New York can not fail to impress every be- 
holder, some descriptive allusion to which has 
T3een previously made. The house on the corner 
of Fifth Avenue and Fifty -seventh Street, one of 
the largest and finest in New 
York, may be cited as a no- 
ticeable example. The build- 
ing itself is of red brick, and, 
occupying several lots on 
Fifth Avenue, extends back 
to the full depth of a lot or 
more on the side street. It 
stands immediately opposite 
the costly Vanderbilt man- 
sion, which has already been 
described. It is a little with- 
drawn from the line of the 
street, and this serves to 
heighten the effect of its va- 
rious stories. It is of irreg- 
ular elevation, and termi- 
nates in some portions with 
large Elizabethan gables, 
whose pointed roofs cover 
four tiers of windows from 
the pavement to the top. 
Another section of the house 
is one story high, and is sur- 
mounted by a big glass con- 
servatory with a circular roof. 
The little oriel-window, 
which projects from the fa- 
cade on Fifth Avenue, is itself 
graceful and pretty enough 
to give elegance to an abode 
of which it were the sole or- 
nament. Throughout this 
house its variously grouped windows of different 
size are enriched by brown freestone copings 
and ornaments carved in flower or leaf forms, 
and from its very broad, round-topped front 
door to some little windows scarcely larger than 
port-holes in the main wall, it appears as if the 
architect had exhausted his ingenuity to give va- 
riety and piquancy to what looks like an Ameri- 
canized French chateau. 

The tower which forms the northwestern 
corner of the dwelling is as picturesque as the 
oriel-window, and, while its real structure Is 
merely an extension of the ordinary rooms of 
the house in the section which it covers, its little 
pointed, round roof gives a variety to an ordinary 
bay-window vastly more pleasing and impressive 
from this change of apparent purpose. To the 
many-varied forms of this tasteful mansion the 
architect has added massed and stacked cliim- 



neys, which, usually dotted about in insignificant 
points on many American houses, are so ugly, 
but which, used with effect, are so trreat an or- 
nament, with their broad, flat surfaces adding 




Porch of Church of Heavenly Rest, Fifth Avenue, near Forty-fifth Street. 



importance to a side-wall, or breaking the mo- 
notony of a dull line of roof. Nature herself is 
more fertile than human art in covering up and 
converting the baldness of her uses by the pink 
light on a rain-cloud, or the purple beauty of 
rocky crags; and the soft haze which rests upon 
a landscape gives fully as deep a joy as the 
thought that its moisture is reviving grass or 
flowers. The satisfaction which is felt in honest 
structural forms may be carried too far, if, for 
example, it disdains those trivial graces and 
slight additions which would convert a recess 
in an apartment into such an oriel-window as 
we have placed before our readers, or form a 
series of such addition into the elegant finish 
of a graceful tower. 

On the north side of Fifty-seventh Street, 
near Fifth Avenue, stands a house showing a 
peculiarly effective oriel-window. As there is 



114 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



:-L:l- 







rnt- 



Old-style Doorways. 

a forcible suggestion of home comfort aud do- I tlie sitting-room, sunny and filled with flower- 
mestic ease in a roomy porch, so, even where i pots, or of the wide and light children's nurs- 
thcre is no particular architectural effect aimed ery window, or a little balcony or vine-covered 
at, the appearance of a projecting window to I piazza, has a happy or tender suggestion quite 

different from anything that 
appeals to the artistic sense 
or the intellectual apprecia- 
tion. The bay-window of 
our illustration is of this 
class. Built above the door 
and first-story windows, it 
makes one of a number of 
somewhat similar projections 
extending along the brown- 
stone line of houses on the 
north side of this street. Ras- 
kin speaks mucli of the pict- 
aresqueness of irregularity; 
and in such edifices as the 
Dry Dock Savings-Rank, or 
the new Court-Housein Sixth 
Avenue at the cornerof Tenth 
Street, the odds and ends of 
corners, gables, or recesses, 
are powerful points of effect, 
designed by the architect. 
But, outside of this intel- 
lectual arrangement of forms 
that appeals directly to the 
eye and the imagination, 
til ere are at present, scat- 
tered all about the United 




A Fifth Avenue Porch. 



AKCHITECTURAL FEATURES. 



115 




States, irregularities in 
building that are traceable 
wholly to the needs and 
conveniences of the peo- 
ple. The need of piazzas, 
the convenience of bigger 
rooms, and the tradition 
of the advantage of sun- 
shine, have led every w^here 
to ugly or pretty exten- 
sions, as the case may be ; 
and such additions cover 
all classes of buildings, from 
the little square porch of 
the day-laborer to such 
elaborate and costly struct- 
ures as this carved and 
variegated bay-window in 
one of the best rows of 
New York houses. As in- 
dications of the needs of 
our people, these archi- 
tectural features are desir- 
able, and by-and-by their 
forms, not always now 
pleasing and artistic, will 
spring naturally from the 
taste and discrimination of 
our people, and architects 
of skill will shape this taste 

into beauty and symmetry as a rule, just as I tional cases. So American city architecture may 
they have done already in a number of excep- I be made as appropriate for America as the old 

palaces of Venice are for 

y ' Italy. In the mean time we 

may be thankful for such 
artistic treatment of the 
bay-window as we show in 
several of the illustrations of 
this book. 

A pretty window belongs 
to a house in Thirty-fourth 
Street near Fifth. Avenue. 
The house has a narrow 
front and is four stories 
high, surrounded by build- 
ings larger than itself. The 
second story of this dwell- 
ing is covered by a deep 
and wide balcony made of 
brown-stone, that occupies 
nearly its entire width ; and 
the third story to which 
the window in the picture 
belongs is almost concealed 

^^ — - - ~— i=r-^-^^ ^ =- -^-~ by equally heavy balconies. 

Porch in East Thirty-sixth Street Here we find an example of 



Porch in Fifth Avenue. 




116 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



the fact that details good in themselves may fail in 
their object by too great or too little prominence. 
This window with its accompanying balcony is 
elegant, with graceful carving, and the window 
with its cheerful draperies is played on by the 
sunlight, whose dappled sheen alternately brings 
into relief the little stone leaves of the ornameuts, 
or the projecting angles, or pillars or balls on the 
balcony. Yet the effect is greatly lost because 
the structural form of the house is entu-ely cov- 
ered up and lost sight of by the fringes and ruffles 
of stone drapery that overhang and overlap the 
corners and the main entrance; and, while one 
or at most two such bits of decoration as this 
would give life and vivacity to a house-front, the 
ornament repeated and piled one above another 
becomes tedious. The little window that would 
suggest home-like coinfort or cheerful society is 
shorn of its charm by the thought that it is not 
a circle of friends or a family group who would 
enjoy it of a warm evening, or that it is ever the 




Porch, Thirty-ninth Street, east of Park Avenue 



gathering-place for children tired of their nurs- 
ery. In this multiplicity of balconies all feeling 
of sociability is destroyed, and such places are 



only fit for the gathering of groups to witness 
processions, or as the outlet for crowded balls, 
or they merely show an ostentatious love of dis- 
play in the owner, or a poor, half-developed 
taste in the architect. 

There is, probably, no question which so taxes 
the invention of the architect as what he shall 
make the main feature of one of our narrow city 
houses, whose owner expects from it a combi- 
nation of originality and attractiveness. Fortu- 
nately for the public, the time for contract- 
planned houses, each as like the other as peas 
in a pod, is now largely superseded by designs 
that at least indicate thought on the part of the 
man who planned them ; and so we see house 
after house springing into existence, with a pe- 
culiar tower on one, a strange ornament on an- 
other, or, as in the example of the house in 
East Thirty-seventh Street, a large gable, that 
projects only enough to show that it is a gable, 
relieves the flatness of the general wall, and 
separates this house as an 
individual structure from 
the mass of its neighbors. 

This house, which is situ- 
ated at a short distance from 
Madison Avenue, is a brick 
building, covering two lots 
in its width, the red color of 
which alternates with a gray 
freestone in large masses 
about its lower story. Many 
of our readers are familiar 
with the beams, horizontal 
and transverse, that show 
the structure at the same 
time that they compose the 
decoration of the old gable- 
ends of roofs in the ancient 
cities of Europe. Between 
such beams in Chester in 
England, in Beauvais in 
France, as well as in a mul- 
titude of similar cities and 
towns, yellow stucco, broken 
and moss-grown, yet clings 
to rough stone or brick 
walls that compose the edi- 
fice. Decayed timber in 
these beams often presents 
the picturesque and worm- 
eaten appearance of age, 
■while the projecting eaves of 
the stone roofs alternately shadow or illumine 
such ends of houses, when the sunshine lights up 
the yellow or brown lichens that cover them, or 



ARCHITECTUKAL FEATURES. 



117 



dims the recessed wall, dreary unless enlivened 
by the presence of pigeons or swallows. Here 
in America we have little chance to see these 
time-worn and time-beautified edifices, unless it 
be in some old dwelling in a Dutch town of New 
York State, and, instead of the architectural va- 
riety of aspect atforded by the old network -like 
timbers on these gable-ends, the architect falls 
back upon such ornament or variety as the ma- 
terials to his hand afford him. The most con- 
venient and easy method of decoration is reached 
in America at the present time through the use 
of variously-colored stone, or of bricks, either in 
flat vaults, or with their ends fitted edgewise 
to the angles of the main wall. The architect 
of the pretty and original facade of the house 
in Thirty-seventh Street has availed himself of 
these mural decorations, and we see in the con- 
cave-pointed roof, with its one window, several 
tiers of black bricks, forming a tooth-shaped 
ornament, and this gable is separated from the 
story below it by an elaborate row of gray carved 



ornament of tessellated black brickwork, and 
this story in its turn is marked off by stone-carv- 
ing. The second floor of the house exhibits one 




Tower— Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street. 

stones. The next story of the gable, whose front 
is broken by a group of three windows in the 
center, is in its turn relieved by another broad 




Oriel-Window — Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street 

window embellished by the gray-stone balcony 
that forms at the same time a pretty finish to a 
bay-window that composes the lower section of 
this gable. The gable projection occupies rather 
more than half the width of the house, and is 
bounded on either side by a narrow, flat wall 
with one window group in each story, and with 
a small bay-window in the second story domi- 
nating the front door. 

In New York, the eye jumps from a Sara* 
cenic temple, like the Temple Emanuel in Fifth 
Avenue, to a Gothic cathedral like St. Patrick's, 
or to a French chateau like that at the corner 
of Fifty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue. Di- 
rectly opposite the latter building, on the east 



118 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




structed very largely in lliis 
eflfective style; and the long 
rows of such buildings suc- 




Bay-Wrndow— Fifty-seventh Street, east of Fifth Avenue 



side of Fifth Avenue, rises a white-marble pile, 
looking not unlike many of the aristocratic 
houses of Paris. 

The style of this pile, extending 
from Fifty-sixth to Fifty-seventh 
street, is very ornate, but, compared 
with the Corinthian, the Doric, and 
the Eenaissance style of ornament 
so profusely superimposed upon 
most of the plain flat blocks of 
houses all over our city, its propor- 
tions smootli themselves out into 
simple masses that please if they do 
not entirely satisfy the eye. Few ^ 

residences in New York present ^ 

such great architectural complete- 
ness as this series. Extending with 
a very long front on Fifth Avenue 
and on the side-street, the building 
has the mass and the proportions 
of a public edifice. Its high square 
corners rise much above the re- 
-maining portion of the roof, and 
present the effect of massive tow- 
ers, while the symmetrical disposi- 
tion of the windows and colonnades 
increases its appearance of unity. 
The new houses of Paris which 
stand upon the boulevards are con- 



Window — Thirty-fourth Street. 

ceeding each other for miles, 
as one drives toward the Arc 
de Triomphe or along the Rue 

de Rivoli, impress the beholder as belonging to 

a city of palaces. 




Gable — East Thirty-seventh Street 



ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES. 



119 



There is, however, a certain tedium in this 
unending stateliness, this continuous splendor. 
The little palaces mingled with big ones, with 
different ornament and varied roofs, that charm 
the eye and excite the imagination by their 
unique design in Venice, have always the stimu- 
lus of novelty, and have none of the appearance 
of being turned out by wholesale, or by gigantic 



machinery, that is so wearisome in avenues like 
the Boulevard Ilaussmann. To those who be- 
lieve that the ideal of such a street as Fifth Ave- 
nue would be completed when, by the gradual 
survival of the fittest, the separated brown-stone 
houses have all gradually disappeared, to give 
place to blocks crowned with towers, or where 
one elegant and varied roof should suffice to 




Mansard-Roof — Fifth Avenue, corner Fifty-sixth Street. 



cover many residences whose proportions have 
relation to one general effect, such a structure 
as this would be a model. The white-marble 
house in Fifth Avenue is of such a character, 
and, while the divisions and doors that mark 
it as the house of many families are not at all 
conspicuous, this stately building is distinct of 
its kind in the whole length of the avenue. 

A pretty and simple specimen of the tower 
is that of Trinity Church School, which is a not 
very conspicuous feature of the large brown- 
stone building seen across the graveyard of Trin- 
ity Church. It is a picturesque pile, and re- 
minds one of some English college-building with 
its multiplicity of Gothic mullioned windows. 
The tower rises only slightly above the edifice, 



but its long gargoyles, extending far over the 
sides, are quite conspicuous even from Broadway. 
In spite of the insignificance of its situation, it 
commands attention and interest. As the spec- 
tator looks at it from Broadway, crowded with 
vehicles and foot-passengers, a quiet and pictu- 
resque repose lingers about the walls of the se- 
cluded building, and its charming, quaint little 
tower gives a peculiar Old- World appearance to 
its aspect. 

It is pleasant to find in a monotonous line of 
freestone houses with their Greek porticoes and 
high stoops the occurrence of an occasional break. 
The pedestrian, tired by repetition of form in 
buildings, suddenly, for example, finds his eye 
refreshed as it lights on such an odd and irregu- 



120 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




Tower — Trinity Scliool. 

lar turret as that one we show near Twenty-sec- 
ond Street in Fifth Avenue. It is not alone that 
such a picturesque object gives us pleasure, but 
one sympathizes with the poetical or fanciful 
turn of the builder, and, while the eye is allured 
by graceful form, the mind is pleased in the con- 
sciousness, thus tangibly aroused, that there are 
others than humdrum Gradgrinds. The little 
turret whose picture we give is built to cover 
the third and fourth story middle windows of a 
large shop. The building is constructed of red 
brick, and its windows are mostly pointed and 
united into groups by brown and gray freestone 
copings, while in spaces between the stories buflf 
and black brick-work is arranged in tessellated 
designs. The little turret, projecting well beyond 



the house-front, and quite high up in the 
air, aims primarily at being a bay-win- 
dow, and one of its two sides faces ob- 
liquely southward, while the opposing 
angle of the tower looks up Fifth Avenue.. 
The builder, not contented to give the 
form necessary for use, has capped the 
top by a tall and slender pointed roof 
whose shining brass trimmings add to its 
picturesqueness, while an elaborate orna- 
ment of the same metal, that rises high 
above the apex of the roof, renders it still 
more conspicuous. 

Close by Park Avenue in Thirty- sixth 
Street stands a large dwelling which is 
very tasteful and decorative. It extends 
the entire depth of the block, and in the 
extension just beyond the main dwelling 
is placed the odd and pretty little bel- 
vedere, an illustration of which is 
shown. Many houses, both in city and 
country, contain conservatories, used 
partly for plants and partly for sitting- 
rooms. Here against the shining glass 




Turret— Fifth 



nty-seconc 



ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES 



121 



windows stands of flower-pots and tall flowering 
trees, such as oleanders and pomegranates, alter- 
nate with sewing-tables and children's toys, easy- 




Belvedere — Thirty-sixth Street, near Park Avenue. 

chairs and writing-desks, and these sunny par- 
lors furnish an agreeable variety to tlie ordinary 
sitting-room or the conventional greenhouse. In 
a great many parts of Southern Europe the cus- 
tom of having gardens and terraces upon the 
house-tops is very common, and many travelers 
will recollect the tall pots of aloes, the cluster- 
ing rose-bushes, and the deep-green myrtle-trees 
upon the roof of the Doria Palace, the Pallavi- 
cini Palace, and many other of those princely 
mediaeval abodes of Genoa. But as yet, in North- 
ern American cities, we have none of these lux- 
urious hanging-gardens, that are more fitted for 
tropical than for northern climates, and it is only 
here and there that some such little nook as the 
pretty belvedere of our picture gives the sugges- 
tion of a real out-of-door garden forming a por- 
tion of a house. This belvedere forms a sec- 
ond story open bay-window, uninclosed by glass 
above its windowed counterpart in the ground- 
floor. A rounded balcony of gray-stone screens 
this bit of summer-garden with its flowering 



shrubs, or its bed of evergreens ; and slender pil- 
lars, whose carved capitals support the arches 
of the roof, are formed of a similar material. 
Across the top of the long extension of the house 
a similar balustrade ornaments the roof, while 
on the side of the main section of the dwelling 
one or two bay-windows vary the monotonous 
flatness of the dead- wall. Architectural fea- 
tures of this class give great charm to many 
streets in the newer parts of the city. 

An agreeable and picturesque contrast to the 
elaborate Buckingham Hotel, at the corner of 
Fiftieth Street and Fifth Avenue, is made by 
the modest group of brick and freestone build- 
ings that stand behind it in Fiftieth Street. Op- 
posite the stately white walls of St. Patrick's 
Cathedral these pretty fronts group themselves 




Tower — Fiftieth Street, near Fifth Avenue. 

on the south side of the street. The tower forms 
an addition to the room from which it projects, 
as shown in the illustration, and the slightness 



122 



NEW YORK ILLUSTEATED. 



of the means taken to secure so important a 
result by roofing in this little projection and 
ornamenting its top by a slight trellis-work of 
iron and gilt is specially pleasing by showing 
how good taste will utilize trivial means. The 
house to which this tower belongs is good in 




Tower — New Court-House, Sixth Avenue. 



many particulars. Its little bay-window stands 
well in regard to the tower, and its round-topped 
windows, grouped in various clusters, aflford in 
connection with the low-porch door, scarcely 
raised above the level of the sidewalk, a very 
pleasant, cheery, as well as picturesque bit of 
house-building. 

The last illustration of architectural eifects in 
building which we give shows the tovrer on the 
Police Court building at the junction of Sixth 
Avenue, Tenth Street, and Greenwich Avenue. 
The tower is as unique as the building to which 
it belongs, and rises to a considerable height in a 
circular form, much above the level of the sur- 
rounding houses. Its decoration consists chiefly 
of a spiral line of white stone that winds around 
the tower, passing between the windows and 
along the edge of the little loop-holes that light 
the various stories nearly to the roof. The only 
fault one can justly find in this tower is the 
shape of its roof, which, instead of diminishing 
gradually to a point, as is usual in many objects of 
similar construction, whose 
proportions are justly ad- 
mired, has superimposed 
upon its solid proportions 
the inevitable square-sided 
roof which we have bor- 
rowed from the French Man- 
sard, and which, though ap- 
propriate in its place, is 
often ugly when used in 
connection with incongruous 
architecture. In other re- 
spects the effect is very 
pleasing. Several other tow- 
ers even more graceful in 
shape rise from the roof in 
just proportion and relation, 
and stacked chimneys and 
dormer-windows are used 
very effectively. 

Other examples might 
readily be cited displaying 
the unique and interesting 
features becoming more and 
more common in the archi- 
tecture of New York. But 
enough has been shown to 
indicate what is unquestion- 
ably the fact, that there is 
springing up among us a 
style of building which, 
though composite in charac- 
ter, is picturesque and taste- 
ful. 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-PLACES. 



123 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-PLACES. 




Central Park. 

IF there be any point in New York to which 
more than another there can be attached an 
enduring memory, it is the attractive and pictu- 
resque locality known as Central Park. Twenty- 
five years ago it was mainly a wild, uncouth do- 
main, the salient objects of which were swamps, 
bowlders, and huge, knotty projections of rocks 
forbidding in their aspect, and promising any- 
thing but that wonderful development of beauty 
which has since become manifest under the skill 
of the engineer, architect, landscape-gardener, 
and sculptor. Travelers, who have visited prob- 
ably every famous park in the world, pronounce 
eulogiums upon this pride of the American me- 
tropolis, which leave no room to doubt that, if 
it is not already, it will eventually become, the 
most beautiful park on earth. Its trees do not 
possess the grandeur of age, but its shrubbery 
has attained a luxuriant beauty not often ex- 
celled. Central Park, in its large proportions — 
embracing as it does some eight hundred and 
forty-three acres, an area which extends from 
Fifty-ninth Street to One Hundred and Tenth, 
and from Fifth Avenue on the east to Eighth 
Avenue on the west — in its exquisite lakes, 
where in summer one may sail in fairy-like 
boats, and almost be lost among the shady nooks 






and dells 
where the 
swans glide --^--.i -r?- • ■ '^ ,^■'^- 

peacefully ; in ' • y ■ , 

its cozy re- 
cesses found by devious paths, its artificial caves, 
its springs of water flowing from rocks that 
have been tapped by the rods of modern proph- 
ets, its suburban views and villas, its luxurious 
resting-places for the weary, its rural decora- 
tions, its grand lawns and extensive drives on 
roads that are the perfection of art, its various 
amusements offered to the public for a mere 
trifle of expenditure, its bridges, restaurants, 
towers, tunnels, and sculptured works — surely 
there can be no place in Christendom more 
calculated to appeal to that taste for and sym- 
pathy with Nature which exists in the hearts of 
us all. 

Visit it at any hour of the day, and you will 
find thousands gathered to enjoy their walks or 
drives. Music lends its enchantment to the spot 
in the summer, and in the winter the several 
lakes are given up to the sports of the skaters 



124 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



and curlers. There is, indeed, no nook or cor- 
ner in the vast reservation that has not been 
beautified. And every year witnesses some 
change, some additional improvement. Hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars are annually ex- 
pended in this work; and when at last it shall 
be completed, and it has become a complete 
treasury of art, science, and natural history, as 
it now is in part, when the avenues by which it 
is bounded have been lined with handsome man- 
sions, and grown shadowy with trees, the famed 
parks of ancient Europe will pale before the 
beauty and magnificence of that which is even 
now the admiration of all who see it. 

Central Park is essentially a democratic 
place. It was created for the enjoyment of the 
people, and, when you drive there on a Saturday 
or Sunday afternoon, you will see a brilliant and 
ever-changing pageant, such as you will not find 
elsewhere. The most expensive vehicles of the 
wealthy classes will be mingled with the hum- 
bler barouclie that has been hired for the occa- 
sion by a family pleasure-party, or perhaps you 
may find yourself side by side with the grocery- 
wagon of some sturdy German who has brought 
his frau and little ones to enjoy the stirring 
scene, and is en route to the lager-bier saloons 
of the upper portions of the island. Everything, 
in fact, belongs to the living panorama, from the 
nurse and baby-wagon to the old-fashioned rock- 
away of the Westchester farmer, and the landau 
of the fashionable lady. Fast horses and many 
of the celebrities of the city are frequent visitors 
to the park, and perhaps it is the best of all 
localities in New York wherein to observe the 
characteristic phases of out-of-door metropolitan 
life. 

Yet one can not see the park to advantage 
from a carriage-window, but must go on foot. 
The charm of such a pleasance is not merely in 
its broad and frequented avenues, but in the 
thousand nooks and corners, the tortuous wind- 
ings and turnings, where one continually meets 
the unexpected and finds himself secluded from 
all the suggestions of busy life, while the fresh 
air, the sweet scents of grass and flower, the 
shaded quiet, and the songs of birds, surround 
him with all the associations of country life. 

Perhaps in no way can we convey a better 
idea of the multiplicity of attractions in Central 
Park, which has justly been called the lungs of 
New York, than by giving a few statistics. The 
length of carriage ways or drives, ranging from 
fifty-four to sixty feet in width, is about nine 
miles; the length of bridle-paths, having an 
average width of sixteen feet, is a little over five 



miles ; and the footpaths, which are from thir- 
teen to forty feet in width, make a total of more 
than twenty-eight miles in length. There are 
thirty buildings of all kinds in the park, and 
seats to accommodate ten thousand persons, a 
large number of these seats being in shaded 
grottoes. On the four hundred acres of grove 
there have been planted since the opening of 
the park about half a million of trees, shrubs, 
and vines, and a large proportion of the former 
have become noble trees. Exclusive of the res- 
ervoirs, there are about forty-three acres of wa- 
ter, divided into six charming lakes and ponds, 
in several cases these little sheets of water being 
so winding and irregular that rustic bridges are 
thrown over them. 

Scattered about the park are bronze statues 
or busts of Burns, Alexander Hamilton, Fitz- 
Greene Halleck, Humboldt, Mazzini, Webster, 
Shakespeare, Schiller, Sir Walter Scott, and 
Morse ; and ideal statues symbolizing Com- 
merce, the Indian Hunter, and the American 
Soldier. The most noble and striking monu- 
ment in the park, however, is the Egyptian 
obelisk, known as Cleopatra's Needle, which was 
recently brought across the seas from Alexan- 
dria, Egypt, by Lieutenant-Commander Gorringe, 
of the United States Navy. Most of the statues 
in the park have been severely and justly criti- 
cised ; but, aside from the question of artistic 
merit, on which the majority of the visitors who 
go for recreation to Central Park are entirely in- 
competent to decide, these bronze figures give 
an air of dignity and public interest to it, which 
even cynical critics would hardly care to dispense 
with. 

Let us first take a stroll over the Mall, which 
is the grand promenade, extending about the 
third of a mile from the Marble Arch to tlie 
Terrace, and giving an excellent view of a con- 
siderable section of the park. Near the northern 
end is the music-stand ; and on Saturday after- 
noons, during the summer months, when the band 
plays, it is almost impassable, except by moving 
with the crowd. Sunday is, however, the great 
gala-day, for then the poor and many of the mid- 
dle classes of the city throng the park in such 
numbers that every avenue and winding path is 
full of people, bent on enjoyment. The Mall is 
arched over with splendid elms, and along this 
avenue are ranged most of the bronze statues of 
which we have spoken. A pleasant feature is 
the sight of the children in the goat-carriages, 
from mere babies to well-grown youngsters, who 
enter into the enjoyment of the scene with more 
zest even than their elders. 




The Mall, Central Park. 



126 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



At the northern end of the Mall, leading 
down to the Esplanade on the shore of the lake 
and containing the beautiful Bethesda fountain, 
is the principal architectural feature of the park, 
known as the Terrace. It is constructed of a 
tine, soft stone of a yellowish-brown color, and 
the central stairway goes down under the road, 
where the visitor enters an arched-roofed hall, 
used as a restaurant. On the side-stairs are 
beautifully-chiseled carvings of birds, fruits, and 
flowers wrought on the panels of the wall and 
along the base of the balustrade. The whole 
fagade of this fine specimen of park architecture 
is an admirable work, and has been widely and 
justly admired. 

The Ramble is one of the most charming 
portions of the park, consisting of a labyrinth 
of narrow winding paths, abounding in delight- 
ful bits of scenery, consisting of deep thickets, 
small streams, and rustic bridges. In this region 
is the Cave, a deep, rocky dell, where a solemn 
conclave of owls generally sit in state, and glare 
at intruders with big eyes. Near the entrance 
at Sixty-fourth Street, on the Fifth Avenue 
side, is the Menagerie, which has its quarters in 
the Old Arsenal, a castellated brick building. 
There are good in-door and out-door collections 
of wild animals — lions, tigers, panthers, wolves, 
bears, monkeys, squirrels, opossums, kangaroos, 
ostriches, sea-lions, camels, and a hundred cu- 
rious birds and beasts. This zoological exhibi- 
tion, however, is larger in the winter than in 
the summer, as in the former season many trav- 
eling shows go into winter quarters here. 

In the Museum of Natural History, situated 
between Seventy-seventh and Eighty-first Streets 
and Eighth and Ninth Avenues, are some very 
fine collections of rare birds, animals, and insects. 
In the aggregate, this museum is one of the 
largest and finest in the country. It also con- 
tains a meteorological and astronomical obser- 
vatory, and a gallery of art. One of the greatest 
attractions of the park is tiie Metropolitan Mu- 
seum of Art, which is situated on the Fifth 
Avenue side, opposite Eighty-third Street. The 
portion erected, which is only one of a projected 
series of buildings, is two hundred and eighteen 
feet long and ninety-five broad, and is a hand- 
some structure of red brick, with sandstone 
trimmings, in the Gothic style. The most im- 
portant feature of this Museum is the Di Oes- 
nola collection of ancient art objects, exhumed 
in Cyprus, regarded by archfeologists as the most 
remarkable of its kind in the world. There are 
also a number of loan collections of pottery, 
paintings, sculpture, arms, wood-carvings, etc.. 



which amply reward the curiosity of the student. 
The picture-gallei-y belonging to the Museum 
contains some of the best examples of the old 
Dutch, Flemish, and Spanish masters to be found 
in America. This Museum stands within a few 
feet of the East Drive. 

There is no attraction in Central Park which 
will be gazed on with more curiosity and interest 
than the obelisk which was presented to the 
city of New York by Ismail Pasha, late Khedive 
of Egypt, and brought across the ocean through 
tlje remarkable engineering skill of Lieutenant- 
Commander Gorringe, United States Navy. It 
stands on a knoll in the grounds adjoining the 
Metropolitan Museum, and occupies, as it de- 
serves, one of the most commanding situations 
in the park. This monolith carries us back to a 
period more than fifteen centuries before Christ, 
and it is probable that Moses gazed at it, even 
then many generatious old, while he was a priest 
at the city of On, or Heliopolis. According to 
the hieroglyphical writings inscribed on its side, 
it was made at the order of Thothmes III, one 
of the greatest conquerors among the Egyptian 
kings, who carried his arms among all the na- 
tions of the East, to commemorate his victories. 
This is one of two obelisks erected at the city of 
the sun-god, Heliopolis, by this monarch. Three 
centuries after his death, vacant spaces on this 
monolith were inscribed by order of Rameses II, 
who appears to have been the Greek Sesostris, 
and also a great conqueror, with records of the 
latter's achievements. Under the Greek domin- 
ion of the Ptolemies, this wonderful monument 
of the most ancient civilization in the world was 
removed from its time-honored site at the city 
of On to Alexandria, where it occupied a place 
which made it almost the first object greeting 
the eye of the voyager on entering the harbor. 
When Augustus Caesar and Mark Antony fought 
their tremendous duel under the very eyes of 
the beautiful Cleopatra, tliis was already nearly 
fifteen hundred years old, and it looked down 
unchanged on all the warlike convulsions, " the 
drums and tramplings of conquest after con- 
quest," which have swept over Egypt in succes- 
sive waves. Of the different Egyptian monu- 
ments which have been removed from their 
native land and erected in foreign countries, in- 
cluding those in Rome, Paris, and London, the 
New Y^ork obelisk, known as Cleopatra's Needle, 
is the most remarkable and historically interest- 
ing, as well as the most perfect in its preserva- 
tion. The bystander who can look at this dumb 
but eloquent witness of nearly thirty-five cen- 
turies of the world's changes and catastrophes 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-PLACES, 




without a 
strange thrill 
must be, indeed, 
callous and lack- 
I ing in imagina- 
tion, 

A charming 
place for a ram- 
.ble or drive may 
be found in Riv- 
erside Park, a 
narrow and ir- 
regular strip of 
land lying be- 
tween Riverside 
Avenue and the 
Hudson River 
from Seventy- 
second Street to 
One Hundred 
and Thirtieth 
Street. Be- 
tween the west- 
ern limit and 
the river, how- 
ever, passes the 
road-bed of the 
Hudson River 
Railway. The 
general width 
of the park is 
about five hun- 
dred feet, while 
its entire length 
is some three 
miles, the area 
being about one 
hundred and 
seventy - eight 
acres, only a 
portion of which 
has been laid 
out in walks and 
drives, while the 
rest still retains 
the wild pictu- 
resqueness o f 
nature. The 
surroundings of 
this park are so 
lovely that it is 
believed it will 
ultimately be- 
come the most 
aristocratic residence region of New York 
The ground rises to a bold bluff above the Hud 



son River, and the views from the 
way are very charming, giving 



river 

es 



drive- 
of the 



I 



128 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 




undulatinp:, tree-covered park, the shining 
stretches of the river dimpled into innumerable 



surrounded by a wide 

is terraced down to the track. 



wavelets, and the Wee- 
hawken heights oppo- 
site. Within its limits 
is the Olaremont man- 
sion, named after Lord 
Clare, a royal colonial 
governor; and pei'ched 
at the bifurcation of 
two huge oak-limbs is a 
marble bust of George 
II, which was brought 
to this country by a 
Dutch ship, and ante- 
dates the famous one 
which once stood on 
the Battery. 

A famous resort in 
connection with the 
turf interests of New 
York is the race-course 
known as Jerome Park, 
which was laid out and 
beautified with trees, 
shrubbery, a club-house 
and other necessary 
buildings, by Leonard 
W. Jerome. Turf 
amusements number 
among their patrons 
many of the most 
wealthy and influential 
residents of the city. 
The American Jockey 
Club, organized in 1866, 
leases Jerome Park, and 
it is under their au- 
spices that the most ex- 
citing races run in the 
vicinity of New York 
are conducted. This 
park is situated near 
Fordham, in the ex- 
treme northern suburb 
of the city. The track 
is an excellent one, and 
on a knoll in the cen- 
ter stands the club- 
house, which is a hand- 
some and well-appoint- 
ed structure, containing 
parlors, large and small 
dining- rooms, and 
sleeping- and retiring- 
rooms. The house is 
veranda, and the lawn 
On racing-days 



PARKS AND PLEASURE-PLACES. 



129 



these are covered with ladies in bright toilets, 
and the drags of the Coaching Club are drawn 
np near by. Opposite the club house are the 
large grand staud, the quarter-stretch (where 
the betting men congregate), the judges' stand, 
etc. The American Jockey Club is really the 
most prominent racing association in the United 
States, numbering as it does some fifteen hun- 
dred members, and including representatives 
of nearly every wealthy family in the city. 
It is presided over by Mr. August Belmont. 
The Club gives two meetings annually, one 
early in June and the other early in October, 
during which thei-e are five, six, and some- 
times seven days of racing. Horse-racing has 
not become so essentially a national pastime 
in America as in England, and nowhere in this 
country do we ever see such a scene of enthusi- 
asm and interest as that of Derby Day on the Ep- 
som Downs of England, which so engages the 
attention of all classes as to supersede all other 
interests whether of 
business or pleasure. 
But a racing-day at 
Jerome Park, if it can 
not boast of the uni- 
versality of interest 
and that picturesque- 
ness which comes ot 
an immense throng 
of all classes meeting 
for the nonce on 
terms of democratic 
equality, has a gay- 
ety and attraction 
of its own which 
make a visit on one 
of these occa- 
sions an agree- ('" 
able episode. 





The most unique and attractive pleasure re- 
sort in the vicinity of New York is found, how- 
ever, at Coney Island, only a few years ago a 
barren waste of sand, with a few low taverns, 
given over to the amusements of rowdies and 
" demi-reps," but now crowded with magnificent 
hotels and all those attractions which make the 
seaside delightful for a day's visit. Of its kind 
there is no watering-place in the world which 
has so many individual fascinations as Coney 
Island under its present regime. 

Coney Island is the extreme western end of 
a great outlying sand-bar broken by inlets, ex- 
tending along the coast of Long Island for ninety 
miles, other sections being known as Rockaway, 
Long, Jones, Oak Island, and Great South Beach- 
es. Coney Island is a part of the town of Graves- 
end, and is separated from the shore by Graves- 
end Bay on the west, Sheepshead Bay and Coney 
Island Creek on the north. On the east it runs 
out to a sharp point, and has the broad Atlantic 
for its southern boundary. Its distance in a bee- 
line from the battery to the wharf at the western 
end of the island is eight and one half miles. 
Previous to 1875 this fine stretch of sea-beach, 
with its splendid surf- bathing and its convenient 
location with reference to access from New York 
and Brooklyn, was a mere waste of barren sand 
except at the west end of the island, where there 
was a small hotel, to which two steamboats made 
daily trips, and at the terminus of the Coney Isl- 
and road, where stood another wretched hostelry, 






■ l^/f^ 




The Obelisk, Central Park. 



130 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



to wliicli driving parties from Brooklyn some- 
times came. But tlie beach, as has been previ- 
ously indicated, was but little visited by the more 
refined classes, its wonderful facilities for sea- 
bathing and enjoyment of the fresh ocean-breezes 
being for the most part given up to the rough 
and dissolute, who were wont to turn the 
beautiful beach into a pandemonium. A single 
horse-car line from Fulton Ferry and a steam 
line from a remote portion of Bi-ooklyn, near 
Greenwood Cemetery, furnished the means of 
reaching the other portions of the beach. In 
1874 a steam road from Twentieth street, Brook- 
lyn, was built by an enterprising capitalist to 
what is now known as West Brighton Beach, and 
a large pavilion and restaurant were erected at 
its terminus. The result proved that the enter- 
prise necessary to afford a convenient means of 
reaching the island was all that was necessary to 
secure for the place the position to which its 
location and natural advantages entitled it, as 
the most popular watering-place in this country. 
At the present time eight steam-railways, one 
line of street-cars, and nine lines of steamboats, 
capable of transporting at least one hundred and 
fifty thousand persons to and from the beach 
daily, are in operation. The beach itself is cov- 
ered with light and airy buildings of all sizes and 
for every conceivable purpose, and during the 
season the sands are black with people daily. 
Three of the hotels are among the finest of their 
kind in the world, and a number of others are 
fully equal to the best hotels at other watering- 
places. The island is now divided into four 
parts, known as the West End or Norton's Point, 
West Brighton or Cable's, Brighton Beach, and 
Manhattan Beach. Beginning at the West End, 
or Noi'ton's, the island has been but little im- 
proved. The beach is covered with the refuse 
thrown up by the tides, and the siirface of the 
island is covered with irregular hummocks of 
fine white sand and an occasional growth of 
beach-grass and laurel. Norton's Hotel is an 
old, low, wooden building, back from the shore, 
and a wooden path leads down to a large pavil- 
ion. Accommodations are provided here for 
parties with lunch-baskets, and there are numer- 
ous unattractive-looking bathing-houses. Be- 
tween Norton's Hotel and West Brighton Beach 
there are fourteen small hotels and pavilions. 
The principal hotel at West Brighton is known 
as Cable's, and this point is about the center of 
the beach. The scene here is suggestive of a 
huge fair-ground. There is a broad plaza in the 
center, with green grass and flowers, traversed 
with wide modern pavements. Besides Cable's, 



there are several other very decent liotels clus- 
tered about the plaza. Every afternoon and 
evening a band plays at the pavilion near by, 
and the scene at night is illuminated by the brill- 
iant rays of the electric light. A camera-ob- 
scura gives excellent views of the beach, which 
are well Avorth seeing ; and an observatory, three 
hundred feet high, the top of which is reached 
by large elevators, aifords a splendid outlook 
over the island, the bay, and the adjacent cities. 

One of the most striking features of this part 
of the island is the pier, one thousand feet long, 
built of tubular iron piles, which runs out a thou- 
sand feet into the sea. On it are three two-story 
buildings containing saloons, restaurants, and 
promenades, twelve hundred bath-rooms,* and 
stairways leading down into the water from the 
pier. Steamboats from New York land at this 
pier nearly every hour all day. 

A wide drive and promenade about half a 
mile long lead to Brighton Beach on the east. 
Park wagons are continually passing to and fro 
to convey those too tired or too lazy to walk. 
From a point about half-way between the two 
latter-named beaches, an elevated railway will 
run to Locust Grove, connecting there with 
steamboats from New York. Brighton Beach 
is one of tlie pleasantest parts of the island, and 
is a favorite resort of Brooklyn people. If it is 
a little less gay and showy in its surroundings, 
its air of home-like comfort in the appointments 
of its buildings will more than compensate in 
the opinion of many people. The hotel is an 
ornamental Avooden structure, five hundred and 
twenty -five feet long, and three stories in height, 
with broad piazzas extending around the whole 
building. From every one of its towers during 
the summer season streams bunting, as is the 
case with all of the buildings on the island. 
The hotel is handsomely finished and decorated, 
and in its furniture and appointments will com- 
pare favorably with most city hotels. Twenty 
thousand persons can be easily fed here during 
the day. In front of the hotel an orchestra of 
sixty performers play during the afternoon and 
evening, and the grounds are prettily laid out 
with walks, grass, and flowers. 

From Brighton Beach the grounds of Manliat- 
tan Beach extend eastward for two miles and a 
half. The hotel is afine Avooden building, six hun- 
dred and sixty feet long, and three and four stories 
in height, said to be one of the largest structures 
of the kind in the world. It is richly furnished 
and admirably appointed in every particular, the 
permanent guests having sole claim to the use 
of the upper floors, while the lower floors and 



132 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



marine railway runs 
westward to the Brigh- 
ton Beach Hotel, along 
the sands ; and a new 
road will soon be built 
on piles across Sheeps- 
head Bay to the race- 
course of the Coney Isl- 
and Jockey Club. Mu- 
sic is furnislied, as at the 
other principal hotels, 
from the pavilion in 
front, and an immense 
throng may be always 
seen here, listening to 
the music, which *s of 
the finest, chatting, 
laughing, flirting, and 
otherwise enjoying a 
delightful open-air con- 
cert with its enlivening 
and joyous surround- 
ings. Four thousand per- 
sons can dine at one 
time, and thirty thou- 
sand during the day. In 
a grand pavilion near 
tlie hotel fifteen hundred 
peri-ons can sit at table. 
Visitors who bring their 
own lunch are provided 
for here, and capital din- 
ners of sea-food can be 
had. The bathing-houses 
to the left contain twen- 
ty-seven hundred sepa- 
rate rooms, and the ar- 
rangements are perfect 
in every respect. The 
beach in front is fenced 
in, and the inclosed 
space rigidly reserved 
for bathers. Large floats 
beyond the breakers af- 
ford resting and diving 
places for expert swim- 
mers, and life-boats pa- 
trol the beach at the 
same point. The ladies' 
bathing-houses are sep- 
arate, and hot and cold 
salt-water baths in pri- 
vate rooms are provided 
for those who do not 
piazzas are given over to the daily visitors. In [ like surf-bathing. An amphitheatre seating two 
the rear of the building is the rail way -station ; a | thousand persons overlooks the bathing-grounds. 




PARKS AND PLEASURE-PLACES. 



133 



and a band plays here during the 
afternoon and evening. 

East of the Manhattan Hotel 
is the Oriental Hotel, built by the 
Manliattan Beach Company, for 
the accommodation of permanent 
guests and fsimilies who desire to 
be free from the confusion attend- 
ing the coming and going of tran- 
sient visitors and excursionists. It 
is a picturesque structure six and 
seven stories high, four hundred 
and seventy-eight feet long, and 
ornamented with eight large cir- 
cular towers rising forty feet above 
the roof, each surmounted by a 
minaret fifteen feet high. There 
are four hundred and eighty sleep- 
ing-rooms, handsomely furnisbed, 
and the main dining-room is one 
hundred and sixty by sixty-four 
feet ; and the servants' rooms and 
the various offices are in the de- 
tached buildings in the rear. 

From the foregoing description 
it may be readily gathered that 
Coney Island is a most remark- 
able and unique watering-place. 
Within, an hour's journey of New 
York, it furnishes thousands of 
people, who can not leave the city 
during the summer months except 
for a very brief period, a chance 
for seaside diversion, bathing, and 
fresh air, while every resource 
known which can gratify the most 
epicurean tastes offers its seduc- 
tions for the more fastidious public. 
Indeed, many families, previously 
in the habit of going for the sum- 
mer to more distant points, have 
of late adopted Coney Island for 
their summer home. It is, how- 
ever, from the great throng of 
daily pleasure-seekers, made up of 
all classes, that Coney Island gains 
its peculiar picturesqueness and 
animation. The whole length of 
the beach on a bright summer day 
is a never-ending procession of 
people, from men and women of 
the highest social rank and posi- 
tion, to humble mechanics and la- 
borers out for a day's airing with 
their families; and the contrasts 




of life and 



character resulting from this heterogeneous as- 



sembly give Coney Island its greatest 
aside from the sea, air, and sunlight. 



:harra, 








■Or , 






^^ 



X 



Scenes at Coney Island. 




Scenes at Coney Island. 



136 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



B K C) O K L Y N 




Ferry-House, Brooklyn. 



A DAY might be well spent by the visitor in 
rambling about the city of Brooklyn, which 
contains many objects of local and historic signifi- 
cance, to say nothing of the pleasant drives that 
abound in its suburbs. The third city in the 
United States in respect of population, it is es- 
sentially a portion of New York, and probably 
the day will come when it will be nominally as 
well as really incorporated into the great Amer- 
ican metropolis. The " City of Churches," as 
Brooklyn is often called, is practically a great 
dormitory or suburb of New York. But little 
business is done there except what is directly 
connected with the shipping interests of the 
port of New York, or such supply-trade as may 
be necessary for local needs. 

Instantly the stranger sets foot in Brooklyn, 
he is struck with the provinciality and serenity 
of the place ; contrasting so vividly with the 
feverish energy which makes every pulse of life 
just across the East River throb so fiercely. 
Brooklyn in many respects reminds one of 
Philadelphia in this quiet and peaceful feeling 
which is diffused through all its associations, 
and causes one to liken it to a huge, overgrown 
country village. In some respects, however, 



Brooklyn has supplementary advantages which 
cause it to be of the greatest advantage to New 
York, aside from its value as a residence region 
for those engaged in the tumult and hurly-burly 
of business in the imperial center of American 
civilization. 

Originally settled by the Dutch, like New 
York itself, the spirit of the old Flemish burgher 
has impressed itself on the life and traditions of 
the city with a conservatism which has been 
still more fed by the fact that a large proportion 
of the people who have drifted thither come 
from the Eastern States, and have brought those 
notions with them which are the outcome of 
the old New England Puritanism, a power still 
strong in itS' essence, though it has passed away 
as a name. 

The circuit of Brooklyn measures twenty- 
three and a half miles, and the city embraces an 
area of thirteen thousand three hundred and 
thirty-seven acres. Its extreme length from 
north to south is about seven and three quarter 
miles, and its greatest breadth five miles, the 
western bouadary affording about eight and a 
half miles of water-front. "Williamsburgh, for- 
merly a separate city, was united with Brooklyn 



BROOKLYN. 



137 



in 1855, and is known as the Eastern District. 
In fact, the city embraces several districts, still 
locally known by the names which they bore 
when they were distinct municipalities. The 
city has many advantages as a place of residence. 
It is for the most part considerably elevated 




above tide-water, and is open on all sides to 
land and sea breezes, while the wide streets, 
generally at right angles to each other, afford a 
free circulation of air. 

Of the numerous ferries which connect 



Brooklyn with New York, Fulton Ferry is by 
far the most important, and is an avenue of 
travel and traffic whose extent astonishes one 
when he examines its statistics. Not less than 
twenty-five million people cross this ferry an- 
nually, not to speak of the enormous amount of 
freight borne on these sluggish, tur- 
tle-shaped boats, which play so im- 
portant a part in the economy of 
New York life. The ferry-house on 
the Brooklyn side is a roofny and 
ornate structure, and there was a 
time when the most important busi- 
ness interests of Brooklyn were con- 
I centrated in its immediate vicinity, 

but the business center has now shift- 
ed to the City Hall, where are situated 
most of the monetary institutions, 
I such as banks, insurance companies, 
D etc. The great commercial interests 
; lie along the river-front. It is here 
M that Brooklyn plays a most impor- 
? tant part in filling a great need for 
° New York ocean-commerce. Brook ■ 
?■ lyn's extended water-front is com- 
5 pletely occupied by piers, slips, ware- 
l houses, boat rnd ship yards, ferries, 
° etc. Herearesomeof til e most com- 
i modious and extensive wharves and 
I warehouses in the United States. The 
I immense quantities of grain received 
>, here make Brooklyn one of the great- 
l est grain depots in the woi"ld. Grain 

1 is brought from the Western States 

2 by canal and river to the port of New 
': York, and then stored in the Brook- 
• lyn warehouses for distribution 
5 through the United States and Eu- 
? rope. It is estimated that twenty- 
' five thousand vessels exclusive of 

canal-boats and lighters are annually 
unloaded on the Brooklyn side of the 
East River, and that the total value 
of the merchandise stores is but little 
less than three hundred million dol- 
lars annually. 

One of the most striking features 
of the Brooklyn water-front is the 
massive Atlantic Dock, which belongs 
to a company organized m 1840, and 
the first to provide extensive ship ac- 
commodations of this kind. This fronts Gov- 
ernor's Island, near the south extremity of the 
shore-line, and is a basin in the form of a par- 
allelogram, with an area of forty acres, and a 
depth of twenty-five feet, being sufficient to 



138 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



float the biggest ships, five hundred of wliich 
can find quarters in it at once. The Brooklyn 
Basin, the Erie Basin, the Wallabout Basin, and 
others, also furnish equally extensive facilities 
for the accommodation of vessels and the com- 
merce of which they are the indispensable vehi- 
cles. It will be easily admitted, then, that the 
Brooklyn water-front, with its incomparable ac- 
commodations for shipping, is a necessary sup- 
plement to New York and the interests of the 
port. 

About a half-mile from the Fulton Ferry 
stands the City Hall, at the junction of Fulton, 
Court, and Joralemon Streets. This is a fine 
structure of white marble in the Ionic style, 
with six columns supporting the roof of the por- 
tico. Its dimensions are one hundred and sixty- 
two feet by one hundred and two, and seventy- 
five feet in height, comprising three stories and 
a basement; it is surmounted by a tower, the 
top of which is one hundred and fifty-three feet 
from the ground, and which contains a clock, the 
dials of which are ilhiminated at night. This 
building was erected in 1845, at an expense of 



two hundred thousand dollars, though the origi- 
nal plan, which proposed a much greater struct- 
ure, would have cost more than five times that 
amount. 

The Kings County Court-House, Avhich is 
situated on Joralemon Street, in the rear of the 
City Hall, extends back to Livingston Street and 
fronts on Fulton Street. It is one hundred and 
forty feet wide and three hundred and fifteen 
feet in depth. The height is sixty-four feet, and 
the building is surmounted by a cupola composed 
of ribs and panel-work of iron, rising one hun- 
dred and four feet above the ground. The main 
edifice is constructed of Westchester marble, in* 
the Corinthian style of architecture, and it was 
erected in 1862, at a cost of five hundred* and 
forty-three thousand dollars. Adjoining the 
Court-House, as shown in the illustration, may 




Academy of Music and Academy of Design. 



BROOKLYN. 



139 



he seen the Municipal Building, also on Joral- 
emon Street. It is a fine structure of marble, 
with spacious rooms and hallways, and is occu- 
pied as the headquarters of the police and for 
other municipal purposes. Near by this vicinity, 
in Washington Park, are interred the remains of 
the ill-fated prisoners of war who died on the 
terrible prison-ships, and were first buried on 
the adjacent shores of the Wallabout. After 
some years of agitation, the bones were finally 



collected in 1808, and laid in a vault near the 
Navy-Yard with imposing ceremonies. In 1873 
they were transferred to a vault constructed 
for the purpose in Washington Park (old Fort 
Greene), where it is also proposed to erect a 
monument to the memory of the martyrs. 

Other imposing buildings are the County Jail, 
in Raymond Street, a heavy- looking, castellated 
Gothic edifice of red sandstone ; the Penitentiary, 
in Nostrand Avenue, near the city limits ; the 



















m 



'r-^' 



f^ 






^u^ 



t 



"ir:^ 



i_fe3lfi 








Long Island Historical Society Building. 



State Arsenal, in Portland Avenue near Washing- 
ton Park ; and the City Hospital, which stands 
on elevated ground in Raymond Street near De 
Kalb Avenue. This building has a front of two 
hundred feet, and consists of a main building, 
four stories high, fifty-two feet in width and 
depth, with a rear extension of thirty feet ; and 
two wings, each seventy-four feet long, fifty-six 
feet deep, and three stories in height. 

On Montague Street, west of the City Hall, 
may be observed two fine structures devoted to 
the fine arts, the Academies of Music and De- 
sign, both of which are admirably fitted for 
their purposes. The Academy of Music is the 
property of a stock company, and was erected in 
1860, at an expense of two hundred thousand 



dollars. It is constructed of brick, with Dorches- 
ter-stone trimmings, and has a front length of 
two hundred and thirty-six feet, with a width of 
ninety-two feet in the rear. The interior is rich- 
ly decorated in dark colors, and the seating ca- 
pacity is twenty-three hundred. The opera com- 
panies which have given performances in New 
York have always appeared in this opera-house 
of the sister city, so that Brooklyn has heard for 
a number of years simultaneously with New 
York all the great singers who have come hith- 
er from Europe. The Academy of Design ad- 
joins the Academy of Music, and is a highly 
ornamental structure of the southern Gothic 
style of architecture, built of brown sandstone. 
It has one small and two large rooms for the 




Brooklyn Scenes— Clinton Avenue ; Clinton Street ; On the Heights. 



BROOKLYN. 



141 



exhibition of pictures, lighted from the roof. 
It communicates with the second floor of the 
Academy of Music by large doors. The Brook- 
lyn Art Association holds two annual exhibitions 
of pictures here, in the spring and fall. On the 
opening night there is always a full-dress recep- 
tion, when the Academy of Music is also thrown 



open. Admission can only be obtained by card 
from a member. The pictures are mainly loaned 
by wealthy connoisseurs and by artists ; and the 
work of the scholars in the principal Brooklyn 
schools is also exhibited. After the opening, the 
pictures remain for two weeks on free exhibition. 
Many of the finest pictures which are exhibited 




ject Park. 



first in the New York Academy of Design also 
find their way into the Brooklyn exiiibitions, so 
that the latter are but little less attractive than 
those held in New York as representative of the 
best art of the time. 

Another important institution, which is the 
outcome of the intellectual needs of the time, is 
the Long Island Historical Society, which occu- 
pies a fine large brick structure, seventy-five by 



one hundred feet in size, with terra-cotta and 
stone trimmings, at the corner of Clinton and 
Pierpont Streets, adjoining Trinity Church, which 
was completed in the spring of 1880. There 
are a fine hall, a library containing twenty-six 
thousand volumes, an equal number of pam- 
phlets, and a museum with many curious relics 
among its treasures. Persons not residents of 
Brooklyn are admitted on the introduction of 



142 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



a member. Tlii.s society lias already played a 
highly important part m the collection of old 
colonial records and other national antiquities. 

Brooklyn is celebrated for its churches, and 
contains some of the foremost preaching talent 
of the country. Plymouth Church, where Rev. 
Henry Ward Beecher is pastor, is one of the 
most celebrated institutions of its kind in the 
United States, and is a great attraction for both 
strangers and residents. The church is a huge 
brick building of great architectural simplicity, 



containing the largest church-organ in America, 
and having a seating capacity of twenty-eight 
hundred people. The building is generally 
thronged to hear the famous pulpit orator, and 
one may easily find the way thither by merely 
following the crowd. It is said that the income 
of the church merely from the sale of pews is 
nearly seventy thousand dollars a year. Other 
well-known Brooklyn churches are St. Ann's 
(Episcopal), at the corner of Clinton and Living- 
ston Streets, of the middle pointed Gothic style, 




Greenwood Cemetery. 



BROOKLYN. 



143 



built at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars; 
the Church of the Holy Trinity (Episcopal), 
which has a spire two hundred and seventy- five 
feet high, and is generally of great architectural 
beauty, at the corner of Clinton and Montague 
Streets ; St. Paul's (Episcopal), at the corner of 
Clinton and Carroll Streets, a handsome Gothic 
structure, which cost one hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars; the "• Church of the Pilgrims," 
where Rev. Dr. Storrs is pastor, a noble edifice 
of gray-stone with a commanding spire, at the 
corner of Henry and Remsen Streets, which 
contains in the wall of the main tower a piece 
of the "Plymouth Rock" on which the Pilgrims 
disembarked ; and the Tabernacle, in Schermer- 
horn Street, a square, brick amphitheatre, said 
to be the largest Protestant Church in America, 
where the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, one of the 
most sensational preachers of the time, holds 
forth weekly. The Roman Catholic Cathedral, 
which is to occupy the entire block bounded hj 
Greene, Lafayette, Vanderbilt, and Clermont 
Avenues, when completed, will be one of the 
largest and finest church edifices in the United 
States, if the full design is carried out. 

The most attractive and aristocratic portion 
of the city is known as Brooklyn Heights, so 
called from its commanding altitude, from the 
top of which may be had a fine outlook over 
New York Bay and City. The streets crossing 
this elevated part of Brooklyn are lined with 
handsome residences, which vie with the costly 
structures of Fifth Avenue and its intersecting 
streets, and here dwell many of the prominent 
business and professional men of New York. 
Clinton Street, on the " Heights," is lined with 
beautiful residences, and is the fashionable prom- 
enade, where on a pleasant afternoon or evening 
may be seen much of the wealth and fashion of 
the city. Columbia Street, which reaches the 
most elevated height in Brooklyn, just at the 
approaches of the Wall Street Ferry, is also a 
charming promenade, and contains many fine 
mansions. The most attractive street, however, 
is Clinton Avenue, which is of great width, orna- 
mented with splendid shade-trees, and lined 
with beautiful residences, surrounded by exten- 
sive and highly embelhshed grounds. In the lat- 
ter respect, Clinton Avenue surpasses anything 
which can be found in New York. Our illus- 
tration gives a view of Columbia Street on the 
•■ Heights," Clinton Street, and Clinton Avenue, 
which may be considered among the finest resi- 
dence thoroughfares of Brooklyn. Among other 
tine streets are Bedford Avenue, containing sev- 
eral large churches. New York and Brooklyn 



Avenues, and St. Mark's Place, where there 
are many striking residences in the French cha- 
teau style. 

The " City of Churches " has very appropri- 
ately the most beautiful and extensive cemetery 
in the city of New York, and one of tlie most 
beautiful in the world. Greenwood, as this great 
necropolis is descriptively called, forms a tract of 
nearly one mile square, comprising four hundred 
and fifty acres, and lying about two and a half 
miles from Hamilton Ferry in the southern por- 
tion of the city. It is reached by numerous lines 
of cars, and at all seasons of the year, but particu- 
larly during the summer, when its undulating 
surface is covered with verdure, it will be found 
a very picturesque and lovely spot. Greenwood 
Cemetery is managed by trustees as a public 
trust, and the fund for the improvement and per- 
manent care of the grounds amounts to six hun- 
dred thousand dollars. This cemetery was for- 
mally opened in 1842, and since that time there 
have been nearly two hundred thousand inter- 
ments. Many of the lots are held at a thousand 
dollars each. 

The northern entrance buildings are of great 
architectural beauty. The recesses above the 
gateways are filled with groups of sculpture rep- 
resenting in front our Saviour's entombment, 
and the raising of the widow's son ; on the re- 
verse or inside may be seen the carved represen- 
tation of the raising of Lazarus, and the Divine 
Resurrection. It does not lie within our limits 
to do more than hastily notice the costly and 
beautiful monuments, which so thickly strew the 
natural loveliness of grass, tree, and lake, im- 
proved by the art of the landscape-gardener into 
the most exquisite combinations. Among these 
memorials may be mentioned the following: 
The John Matthews monument, which was erec- 
ted at an expense of thirty thousand dollars ; the 
monument and bronze bust of Horace Greeley, 
erected by the printers of the country ; the 
Brown Brothers monument, erected to com- 
memorate the loss of six members of the fami- 
lies of the great bankers on the Arctic ; the Fire- 
men's monument ; the chapel monument to Miss 
Marj' Dancer ; the marble temple of Scribner and 
Niblo ; the Charlotte Cauda monument ; the Sol- 
diers' monument, erected by the city of New York 
to those soldiers who had lost their lives in the 
late civil war ; the James Gordon Bennett statu- 
ary group ; the colossal bronze statue of De Witt 
Clinton ; and the Louis Bonard monument. All 
these mementoes of the dead are of great beauty 
and lavish costliness, and are only a few of the 
remarkable mortuary memorials to be seen by 



144 



NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



the visitor, who may easily spend a day in an in- 
teresting ramble through the cemetery. 

An afternoon may also be delightfully spent 
in driving through Prospect Park. With just 
[)ride the people of Brooklyn claim that this 
great breathing-spot surpasses in natural advan- 
tages its older rival across the river, and there 
are certainly features of forest and plain, of hill 
and dale, of rolling ground and extent of scenery, 
which with the unbiased visitor go far to justify 
the boast. The work of laying out the park was 
not begun until the month of June, 1866, and the 
progress made is surprising. The ground was 
purchased at an outlay of four million dollars, 
and the total cost, including improvements, has 
been about nine million. 

The area of ground within its limits covers 
five hundred and ten acres. The principal en- 
trance, on Flatbush Avenue, know as the Plaza, is 
paved with Belgian ])avement, and ornamented 
with a fine fountain and statue of the late Presi- 
dent Lincoln, and is bordered by grassy mounds 
decorated with shrubbery. The drives extend 
over a distance of eight miles, besides which 
there are three and a half miles of bridle-road. 



The pathways and rambles for pedestrians are 
lined with trees, and amply supplied with drink- 
ing-fountains, arbors, and rustic shelters. The 
lake covers an area of sixty-one acres, all of 
which are in winter allotted for skating. 

The highest point. Lookout Carriage Con- 
course, is seven eighths of an acre in area, and is 
a hundred and eighty-six feet above the ocean- 
level. The view from its suminit on a clear day 
is wonderfully beautiful. Thence can be seen 
the Highlands of Nevisiuk, Staten Island, the 
Kill van Kull, hills of Orange, the Palisades, etc. 
Elegant resorts are scattered through the park, 
furnishing simple and wholesome refreshments 
for visitors. A grand boulevard has been opened 
from the park to the ocean, two hundred find ten 
feet wide, and six and a half miles long, making 
perhaps the most delightful drive in the vicinity 
of New York. At the southern end of the park 
is a parade-ground of twenty-five acres used by 
the National Guard of the two cities for semi- 
annual inspections, and at other times for polo, 
cricket, base-ball, and other manly games. On 
Saturday afternoons a fine band plays in the 
})ark, and attracts many additional visitors. 



-'2'^irfSji^K^ t 



.u'-^^j-^y^i^^:^-^-^ 





Bird's-eye View of Atlantic Docks, Brooklyn. 



OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST. 





I ^ s I jl ,^ T^ ^ 
I It f f JP t T ^ f 
p "^ f^ ^ A r 









£j_i ffl in 







DECKER BROTHERS' PIANOS— WHERE THEY ARE MADE. 

One of the busy establishments of Now York City is the Manufactory of the celebrated Piano-forte makers, 
Messrs. Decker Brothers, whose instruments have attained a world-wide reputation. Here, under the personal 
supervision of the founders of the house, the vast detail of all that appertains to the manufacture of a perfect 
instrument goes on. Their buildings are situated at Thirty-fifth Street and Eighth Avenue, and are well worthy 
a visit of those who are interested in witnessing the many and varied processes by which this instrument is 
produced. 

The foundation of the house of Decker Brothers was unostentatiously laid in 1862, with a small capital in 
money, but a capital large in experience in all that was necessary to produce instruments to sell to a critical 
public — experience gained by an acquaintance from their earliest youth with every (even the minutest) detail 
of the mechanism of the piano-forte, and by having filled the most responsible positions in the establishments 
of the earlier manufacturers of our time. They indulged in no rosy fancies of sudden popularity and a quickly- 
realized fortune. Of simple tastes, they undertook the business not so much as a means to wealth as for the 
purpose of improving the manufacture. Being practical artisans themselves, and familiar with the capabilities 
of every man employed in the business in New York, they found no difficulty in securing the services of the 
highest skill for each department. Good mechanics prefer employment where their ability is not only well 
paid for, but is also properly appreciated, and the estimation in which the Decker Brothers were held was such 
as to cause the leading journeymen in other factories to seek engagements at their hands. 

The instruments manufactured by this firm fully realize the standard of what a well-made piano, for tone 
and durability, should be. The firm is one of the most prominent of representative piano-forte makers in the 
world, having won this proud position by the intrinsic merits of the instruments of i .s make. 

Their warerooms, at 33 Union Square, is also a pleasant place to visit. Here will be found many superb 
specimens of artistic skill in this direction, both as to musical excellence and exquisite exterior ornamentation 
and finish. Strangers, even if not intending to purchase, but who wish to examine, will be welcomed, and af- 
forded every opportunity for testing the tone and for the inspection of the finish of their pianos. The location 
of the building is convenient, being on the most prominent thoroughfare in the city. 



146 NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



We give illustrations of the stores of Messrs. A. T. Stewart & Co. on other pages in the body of this work, 
where they are but just mentioned as we pass along up Broadway. But here we give a more extended account of 
these most wonderful establishments, not to gratify the curiosity of New-Yorkers, for there is probably not one 
who does not know all about them thoroughly ; but in answer to the inquiries of the stranger — for none 
ever come to our city but they seek out and visit " Stewart','." The building, located on Broadway and 
Chambers Street, is six stories in height, overlooking the City Ilall Bark, and runs from Chambers to Reado 
Streets, extending back on those streets some three hundred feet. When erected, this great block of marble was 
considered to be " up town," and twenty years ago it was as fashionable for ladles to shop there as it is now in 
Stewart's grander temple of trade on Broadway, Ninth to Tenth Streets. It is constructed of the purest Westches- 
ter marble, and in the Corinthian order of architecture, and its appearance to-day is as fresh and pleasing as when 
first opened to the public nearly thirty years ago. Within this period many other styles and orders of architec- 
ture have been tried and adopted in the construction of business-edifices in our city ; but, among them all, none 
appear more beautiful or better adapted to the taste or the wants of the immense business, to accommodate which 
it was erected. Until recently this building was completely devoted to the wholesale department of their im- 
mense business ; but the offices have now been moved to the larger building above. Immense as the stock dis- 
played is, it forms only a small part of the whole, as compared to the mass of goods on storage at the various 
public stores in this city, Jersey City, Brooklyn, and elsewhere, many of which are wholly filled with the property 
of this firm. 

The retail establishment of Messrs. A. T. Stewart & Co. {see page 66) occupies the entire square of ground 
contained within Broadway, Fourth Avenue, and Ninth and Tcntli Streets, covering an area of over two acres, and 
is, with its seven stories, containing over sixteen acres, devoted alone to the retail trade of this gigantic concern. 
This building is the first and only one of its kind in the world constructed wholly of iron, standing alone, unsup- 
ported by any surrounding walls. It is an enduring monument to the mind that conceived it and to the architect 
who executed it. With no obstructions to the eye, upon entering, the visitor has before him, at one glance, the 
two acres of floor upon which he stands. Here, as in the wholesale department, order is the first rule. No un- 
seemly haste or bustle is allowed, but everything is quiet and business-like. No more beautiful sight can be 
had in New York City on a pleasant day than can be obtained by a visit to this establishment. On the first, 
second, and third floors, are exhibited the finest productions of Europe and America ; while, looking down from 
the dome upon the vast multitude of ladies and customers usually trading within these acres of space, a view is to 
be had the like of which can be found nowhere else, either in this country or Europe. 



JVmV YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



U1 




W. H. 8CHIEFFELIN & CO:S, CORNER WILLIAAL AND BEEKMAN STREETS. 



W. H. ScHiEFFELiN & Co.'s large and well-known drug-house, in William Street, is in one of the most active 
business centres in the city. Their establishment is the oldest and most extensive in the country ; it was origi- 
nated before the beginning of the present century, and has now the confidence of a vast constituency, extending 
through all parts of the Union. This vast warehouse, through all its numerous stories, is crowded with goods in 
every department of their multifarious business, and the stir and bustle of their immense trade would interest and 
surprise the stranger. 



148 NBW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 



LIFE INSURANCE. 

Life Insurance, though hardly known in this country thirty-five years ago, has grown to be one of its most 
important financial interests, and one which has a direct bearing upon the welfare of thousands of women and 
children at a critical period of their lives. We have selected as a representative of this interest the New York 
Life Insurance Company, one of the old purely mutuals, whose history covers nearly the whole period of the life- 
insurance business in this country, and whose age, prosperity, honorable dealings, and present standing, combine 
to make it representative of the best features of American Life Insurance. 

The Company's Home Office, 346 and 348 Broadway, New York (an illustration of which we give on page 19 
of this work), was erected by the Company in 1868-70. The ground dimensions are sixty feet front on Broadway, 
one hundred and ninety-six feet on Leonard Street, seventy-one feet wide in the rear, and one hundred and ninety- 
seven feet on Catharine Lane. This site, being centrally located, is one of the most valuable in the city, and has 
long been a favorite one with New-Yorkers. It was formerly occupied by the Society Library. 

The building presents an imposing exterior. It is built of pure white marble, in the Ionic style, the design 
having been taken from the Temple of Erectheus at Athens. The portico at the principal entrance is twenty feet 
in width, projects four feet from the main building, and has double columns on each side. Upon these rests a 
cornice, with a broken pediment, in which is set, in sculptured marble, the insignia of the Company, viz., an 
eagle's nest, and an eagle feeding her young. The coat-of-arms of New York City appropriately crowns the front 
of the edifice. The roof is of iron, and the building is fire-proof throughout. 

The interior of the building is in keeping with its general character — simple^ elegant, and perfectly adapted to 
the purpose for which it was erected. The offices of the Company are at the end of the hall, on the first floor. 
The main room takes in the whole width of the building, and is one hundred and ten feet long through its centre. 
Side-rooms at the rear end serve as offices for the President and Vice-President, Medical Examiners, and Directors, 
and as fire and burglar proof vaults for the securities and books of the Company. Agents of the Company 
occupy a part of the second floor, and the remainder of the building is rented for stores and offices. 

The substantial character of the building, its great beauty, and its perfect adaptation to the purpose for which 
it was constructed, combine to make it symbolical of the financial soundness and honorable dealing of the Com- 
pany, and of that complete adaptability to the wants of the age which has ever characterized its systems of 
insurance. 

This Company completed its thirty-sixth year December 31, 18S0. At that time its history ami condition were, in brief, and in 
round numbers, as follows: 



History, 1845-1880. 

Number of Policies Issued 149,000 

Premium Receipts $91,000,000 

Death-Claims Paid 22,000,000 

Dividends and Returned Premiums Paid 30,000,000 



Business. 1S80. 

New Policies Issued 7,000 

Amount Insured $22,i 100,000 

Total Income 8,9M,000 

Interest Receipts 2.317,000 



Payments to Policy-holders jdus Assets 99,000,000 1 Death Claims Paid 1,731,000 



Excess over Premium Receipts 8,000,000 

Condition, December 31, ISSO. 

Number of Policies in Force 48,500 

Total Amount Insured $135,000,000 

Cash Assets 43,000,000 

* Surplus, Company's Standard 4,200,000 

N. T. State " over 9,200,000 



Dividends and Returned Premiums Paid 2,000,000 

Progress, etc., 1880. 

Increase in Assets $4,186,000 

" Surplus, at 4 J per cent 2,000,000 

" Interest Receipts 284,000 

" Premium " 643,000 

Interest exceeded Death-Claims 586,000 



The New York Life has always maintained a deservedly high reputation for careful management, and for 
liberal dealing with policy-holders. Its great success has largely reduced the actual cost of insurance to its policy- 
holders, among whom all the profits of the business are divided, and it continues under the same judicious man- 
agement that has made it a representative of the life-insurance business. 

The conditions of a life policy are simple; the payments are small, compnred with the indemnity promised; 
and, if one has a policy in a good company, its ultimate payment may be regarded as sure. There are very many 
persons who can pay twenty, fifty, or a hundred dollars a year in life-insurance premiums, and never feel the 
poorer for the outlay, who would save themselves many anxious thoughts, and perhaps save their families many 
privations and humiliations, by thus investing a part of their surplus earnings. The great recommendation of the 
system is, that the indemnity it furnishes beffins at once to ike full amount of the polici/, as soon as the first pay- 
ment is made. Thus, for example, the family of a man who insures for $5,000, and pays, say the yearly premiums 
of $150, is entitled to $5,000 at his death, whenever that occurs. If he lives long, future payments are no great 
burden, because annual dividends are declared, to be used in reduction of cash payments when so ordered, and 
when he dies, be that early or late in life, the insurance is a great blessing. 

* Exclusive of the amoimt ($1,752,165.82) specially reserved as a contingent liability to Tontine Dividend Fund. 



350 



A D VER TI8EMEN TS. 




D. Applelon & Co.'s Publishing Establishment, i, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York. 



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Fiiblished Mordhly. 25 cents. 

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street, New York. 



AD VERTISEMEN'TS. 



151 



DECKER BROTHERS' 

PIANOS 

Have sho'wn themselves to be so far supe- 
rior to all others in excellence of work- 
manship, elasticity of touch, beauty 
of tone, and great durability, that 
they are novr earnestly sought 
for by all persons desiring 
the very best Piano. 

Loiv PHces. Easy Terms. 

CAUTION. — Jso Decker Piano genuine unless marked 

SEND FOR ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE. 

Warerooms, No. 33 UN80N SQUARE, New York. 





879 BROADWAY, NEW YORK, 

Importer of Eich Passomenteries, Gimps, Fringes, 

ORNAMENTS, and BUTTONS. 

LARGE ASSORTMENT OF HANDKERCHIEFS AND EMBROIDERIES, 

At attractive prices, 

Parisian Jiovelties in Capes, Scarfs, Breakfast Caps, Bows, Fichus, Mantles, 

Fans, etc. 

Collarettes and Capes made up in the most becoming' and attractive styles. 



SPECIAL ATTENTION TO ALL OBDERS BY MAIL. 



879 Broadw^ay, bet. isth and 19th sts., Ncaa/^ York. 



152 



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SOLD BY ALL DRUGGISTS. 



r 



THE 



New York Life Ins. Co., 

346 & 348 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 



AN OLD COMPANY. 

Organized 184S. 

Purely Mutual. 

No Stockholders. 

Dividends Annually. 



A STRONG COMPANY. 

Accuiulated Assets, over $43,000,000. 
Yearly Income, - - over $8,900,000 cai 
SURPLUS, ever, $9,000,0{ 

BY NEW YORK STATE STANDAhD. 



A LARGE COMPANY. 

POLICIES ISSUED, 
over 149,000. 

INSURANCE IN FORCE, 
$135,000,000. 



A PROGRESSIVE COMPANY. 

The Thirty-sixth Annual Report, 1881, shows a very large increase in Assets, in Surplus, in Income, and 
the largest excess of Income over Expenditures ol any life company in the country. 




The Company's Building and Home Office, 346 & 348 Broadway, New York. 

THE NEW YOBK LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY completed the thirty- sixth year of 
its existence, January 1, 1881, At that time its history was in brief 
and in round numbers as follows : 
The acceptance of One Hundred and Forty-nine Thousand Members (so distributed over the health- 
ful sections of the WORLD, th.it the most f.ivoiable average results of mortality arc obtained); the receipt of 
Ninety-one Million Dollars in Premiums; the payment of over Twenty-two Million Dollars in 
Policy-claims to the representatives of the insured, and upward of Thirty-four Million Dollars in en- 
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and offer absolute security in the sum of Forty-three Million Dollars, safely invested and increasing. 
The present condition of the Company, and the magnitude of its business annually, are shown in detail by the 
Annual Report. 

ATTENTION ^^ invited to the significant fact that during the last fifteen years the Company's INTEREST 
earnings alone have been sufficient to pay the DEATH-CLAIMS maturing under its polieiea. 

Such excellence can be attained only by the greatest care in selection of risks and most judicious investment 
of funds. 

Having always been a purely mutual Company, policy-holders receive their insurance at cost, .and, being ably 
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In the decision of questions involving their rights, the invariable rule is to consider, not alone the technical le- 
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The non-forfeiture system of policies originated with this Company, in 1360, and has since been adopted — 
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NEW YORK LIFE. The system as now perfected by the NEW YORK LIFE secures SAFETY to the 
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policy issued, on practical plans and favorable terms. 

WILLIAM H. BEERS, Vlce-Pres, and Actuary. 



MORRIS FRANKLIN, President. 















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